Scots beauty students asked to strip in front of transgender rapist Isla Bryson after horror sex attacks
27.01.2023 - 13:39
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
Students are demanding answers from college chiefs after they were asked to strip off for beauty classes in front of rapist Isla Bryson. Transgender Bryson was convicted on Wednesday of brutal attacks committed while living as a man.
Now former Ayrshire College students who trained to become beauticians alongside the 31-year-old have told how they got naked for spray tan sessions in front of the sex attacker while she was awaiting trial.
They demanded answers from college chiefs, who denied knowing of the rape charges, while women’s rights campaigners demanded better protection for students.
Rachel Ferguson, 21, said: “It really scares me to look back and realise she was watching me with no clothes on after being charged with this. It makes me feel physically sick and violated. We should have known about these charges. It’s not right that we didn’t know.”
Bryson first appeared in the dock more than three years ago for crimes committed in Clydebank and Glasgow in 2016 and 2019, while known as Adam Graham. Victims in the case told jurors at the High Court in Glasgow how they asked “muscular” Graham to stop before he forced himself upon them.
Students at Ayrshire College’s Kilwinning Campus say they worked alongside Bryson, then known to them as Annie, in 2021. They described her as “overpowering” and “disruptive”, saying classmates were repeatedly branded homophobic before Bryson was finally asked to leave the course.
Rachel, a nail technician from Dundonald, South Ayrshire, said: “We started college when she was beginning her transition. It was a class full of young girls. She was refusing to do practical stuff at first because she said she didn’t feel comfortable.
“We had all kinds of accusations thrown at us in the middle of