The prison service has apologised after a transgender inmate, charged with raping a woman, sexually assaulted four fellow inmates just days after being remanded into an all female jail.

Convicted paedophile Karen White, who was born Stephen Wood, was undergoing gender reassignment, but had not undergone full surgery, when she was accused of repeatedly raping a woman in 2016.

The 52-year-old, who had been previously been jailed in 2001 for a sex attack on a child, told the authorities she identified as a woman and was remanded into HMP New Hall near Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

But within days of arriving at the women-only prison in September last year, White made a sexual advance to another inmate, while in an aroused state.

A fortnight later, White approached another female inmate and struck up a conversation in which she made comments about oral sex.