The mum of transgender double rapist Isla Bryson has told how she’s been left traumatised by the case because she has been the victim of a sex attack.
Rape survivor Janet Bryson revealed she initially had no idea that the predator at the centre of Scotland’s biggest political storm was her son – who now claims to be a woman. In a harrowing interview, the mum of three, who was attacked when she was 23, told how Bryson knew about her ordeal and why she believes no rapist should be allowed in a women’s prison.
Tearful Janet, 63, who last saw her child – then Adam Graham – six years ago, said: “I saw the story about Isla Bryson being convicted of raping two women. I saw the pictures. I didn’t recognise the name or the person – it was only after a friend pointed out who it was that I knew it was my son and that he was now living as a woman.
“I was incredibly shocked. You don’t ever imagine your son will grow up to become a rapist but, knowing what your own mum went through, you would have expected it even less. It’s horrifying. He has always been aware of what happened to me and how it impacted my life.
“Growing up knowing that, it must have had an effect on his life too. My son turning out to be a rapist has left me disgusted and heartbroken.”
Janet – who has dozens of pictures of Bryson, from a baby in her arms and meeting Santa to birthday parties with friends and in school portraits – now struggles to look at the images of her adult child. Bryson was initially transferred to Cornton Vale all-female jail after he was convicted. The court heard the 31-year-old identifies as a woman and was transgender at four years old.
But Janet said: “My son is a rapist. I don’t see how he can go to a women’s prison. I understand why people have been so worried about someone like Adam, who has done what he has done, being sent to a prison full of women.
“I don’t know why it took him until he was 29 to say he wanted to become a woman. But I understand why some people think it’s just a way of getting out of going to a male prison. My son never expressed any wish to me that he wanted to be a girl, dressed in any other way or ever asked to be called by any other name than Adam growing up. Never once, at the age of four or at any other age.
“I would understand it more if this had been something he had been doing for years but that’s just not the case.”
Janet, who was raped by a family friend, said she can’t forget what happened to her and feels nothing but sympathy for Bryson’s victims.
She said: “I know the pain and suffering he will have caused those women. In 1983 I was homeless and went to stay with my mum’s friend, who then raped me. It left me traumatised and I still suffer flashbacks from the attack.
“I didn’t go to the police at the time because I was homeless. Who was going to believe me? However, I later told my daughter, who told Adam. He knew.”
Janet, who lives in Hamilton, said she already had her daughter when she first met Bryson’s father, Adam Binnie Bryson, and went on to marry him in 1992, a year after their son was born. She claimed her late husband was often violent and abusive and she’d regularly leave him and then return. The children were taken into care several times before being returned to her.
Janet said: “Adam’s dad wasn’t very good to me. He would regularly throw me and the kids out of the house and we would be left walking the streets with nowhere to go. We would end up sleeping on other people’s floors.
“Social services took Adam into care when he was three and it was because of his dad. We had nowhere to live. Although his dad was never violent towards him, he wasn’t a nice person. Adam came back to live with me at the age of six but he went back and forth into care over the years. I had a lot of personal issues at the time.
“Despite everything, Adam was a happy child – he was just your typical little boy. He would throw temper tantrums like normal kids do but he wasn’t violent or anything. Even when he was grown up, we always kept in regular contact and he would visit at my house in Hamilton.” But she had no idea that Bryson had married Shonna Graham in July 2016 and taken her surname.
Janet told how they last saw each other at the end of 2016 and had celebrated Hogmanay.
She said: “The last night I saw him, we didn’t argue or anything. It was New Year’s Eve and he was happy but I never saw him again. My daughter later showed me photographs of his wedding but we were never invited.”
After a trial last month at Glasgow High Court, Bryson was convicted of raping one woman in Clydebank in 2016 and another in Drumchapel in 2019. The former DJ had first appeared under the name Adam Graham but, while on bail, had started to identify as a woman and appeared at his trial under the name Isla Bryson.
After being found guilty of both rapes, Bryson was initially taken to the Stirling women’s prison as per Scottish Prison Service guidelines. But following huge political and public outrage, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced the rapist had been moved to the male estate and is understood to be in HMP Edinburgh.
The row, following revelations another dangerous transgender prisoner, Tiffany Scott, was set to be transferred to a women’s jail, came just six weeks after the Scottish Parliament passed the controversial Gender Reform Bill. The bill is designed to make it easier for people to change their gender. The UK Government has blocked the legislation but the FM said she intends to challenge the decision in court.
She has also been pressed repeatedly on whether she believes Bryson is a man or woman but has refused to say. She said the “relevant factor” was not gender but the crime. Bryson will be sentenced on February 28.
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