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A pre-operative transgender woman who battered her lover has been sent to a female jail over fears she would be bullied in a men's prison .

Natalie Kearney, 20, will serve her 12 month sentence at HMP Styal in Manchester after the judge ruled that there was less chance of her being picked on in a women's prison.

A court heard that Kearney punched, kicked and bit boyfriend Michael Hollywood, 44, after she admitted cheating on him, the Liverpool Echo reports.

She blamed the attack on emotions brought on by her sex change but was found guilty in her absence.

Kearney, of Wallasey, Merseyside, was given a restraining order and fined after twice assaulting Mr Hollywood in September last year but despite the three-year ban she continued living in his flat.

On March 6 Kearney, who had been drinking heavily, slapped him during an argument about her “infidelity”.

The pair went to bed but the following morning the row resumed and she punched him in the head.

Jamie Baxter, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court: “She kicked him, causing him to fall over a glass table, and continued to assault him on the floor, biting his arm.”

He ran to a phone box and called police, but Kearney told officers she loved him and claimed she acted in self-defence after he attacked her.

(Image: Peter Fletcher/MEN)

She was found guilty in her absence of common assault and breaching her restraining order.

Kearney was cleared of another assault on Mr Hollywood on March 21, when he fell and broke a bone at the base of the spine.

During a second trial she admitted kicking him in the stomach, but said she had acted in self-defence.

Kearney was found guilty of two further counts of breaching the order, including sending apologetic messages to him on Facebook.

Mr Baxter said: “The Crown says she persistently and deliberately breaches court orders. In her own words ‘it was just a piece of paper’.”

Gareth Bellis, defending, said: “This is a woman who is going through a long transition in her life from male to female, with large hormonal imbalances.”

Mr Bellis said Mr Hollywood sent her texts saying “come over, can we give it another go?”, which showed he was “complicit” in the breaches.

He said: “She loved that man, that’s why she kept going back to him.

“This defendant doesn’t wish anything to do with Mr Hollywood from now on. They separated, she has moved on and has a new partner.”

Mr Bellis urged the judge to impose a suspended sentence on Kearney, who will undergo surgery at the start of next year.

Judge Brian Cummings QC said: “I accept of course it takes two of you to live together and in that sense he was complicit.

“I very much factor in that you were by some distance the younger side of this partnership and also the emotional position alluded to, of your body in the course of as yet uncompleted gender transition.”

Judge Cummings said Kearney’s childhood was “traumatic and damaging” but told her: “There has to come a point where you take responsibility for your own actions.”

He said she turned up hours late to a pre-sentence report meeting, “demonstrated no remorse” and while he wished he could have suspended her sentence, “against this background it’s simply impossible”.

Judge Cummings jailed her for 12 months and imposed a new five-year restraining order.