Outrage over trans paedophile Autumn Tulip Harper’s sentence and allocation to a women’s prison – after he abused his own five-year-old daughter: ‘Profoundly wrong’

A trans paedophile father’s ‘lenient’ sentence and allocation to a women’s prison after he was convicted of abusing his five-year-old daughter has sparked outrage, with claims it has set a ‘dangerous precedent’.

Autumn Tulip Harper, 26, was sentenced to a minimum of two years and six months in prison after he was snared by police in a global bust of a paedophile ring.

Australian Federal Police, acting on a tip from US law enforcement, raided Harper’s home in Clayton South, in Melbourne’s south-east, on September 15, 2023.

Investigators discovered Harper subjected his five-year-old daughter to ‘persistent sexual abuse’ between May and June of that year.

Harper, who now identifies as a woman, sent 77 child abuse files via Discord to his United States-based paedophile master known in court documents as ‘Samuel Booth’.

The details of Harper’s offending, who pleaded guilty in the Melbourne County Court in July 2024 to charges including persistent sexual abuse of a child under 16, are too harrowing to publish.

The County Court heard Harper would most likely be housed in solitary confinement at Victoria’s maximum security female prison Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.

Women’s Forum Australia chief executive Rachael Wong demanded in a letter to Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan that she review the sentence, claiming the ‘extraordinary leniency sets a dangerous precedent’.

‘It creates a perverse incentive for male offenders to identify as women in order to obtain lighter sentences and access to women’s prisons,’ she told The Australian.

Ms Wong said the court appeared to accept that Harper’s crimes were akin to those ‘commonly seen in females charged with sexual offences’ and that he abused his daughter in part to gain validation as a woman.

‘It is profoundly wrong that such reasoning could be used to excuse or soften accountability for one of the gravest crimes imaginable: the sexual abuse of one’s own child,’ she said.

Women’s Voices Australia founder Jasmine Sussex said this was the grim consequence of the state allowing gender self-identification.

‘This is an obscene human rights violation by the Victorian government against the most vulnerable group of women in the state – those incarcerated,’ she said.

‘All decent-minded Victorians are sickened by this craven government policy.

‘It forces the County Court to lie to a five-year-old girl surviving her father’s evil sexual assault and aggravate his offence with state-sanctioned abuse – claiming the paedophile rapist is a woman.’

Detectives discovered Harper had been in a ‘master/slave’ relationship with Booth where he would order them to perform daily tasks and film them.

‘These directions included brushing your teeth or showering, but also included instructions for the sexual abuse of your daughter,’ County Court Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis stated.

Harper initially expressed ‘hesitance and concern’, once telling Booth that ‘she is my daughter and I shouldn’t be doing it’.

‘Booth encourages and instructs you to engage in a variety of sexual and perverse acts with your daughter,’ the judge noted.

‘He occasionally offers you affirmations that you made him “so hard and proud” and that he is “impressed by you” and that “you did so good” and are “such a good girl”.’

Harper told police they ‘felt terrible and horrible’ about the offending.

‘You felt tied to Booth because you were not in a good mental state,’ Judge Karapanagiotidis said during last year’s sentencing.

‘Booth seemed to care, which is not something you had much of. You feel your life had gone terribly and everything got worse.’

Harper’s submitted the fiend was ‘completely lacking connection in life’ and they experienced ‘pervasive feelings of rejection and lack of self-worth’.

Harper was presented as a victim who was exploited by Booth.

‘At first, he was attentive and caring and someone with whom you could share every aspect of your daily life,’ the judge noted.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr Rajan Darjee said Harper ‘identified as a female, living as a female and hormonally female’ and exhibited a common ‘pattern of sexual abuse seen in females’.

‘This pattern of sexual abuse is one which a more dominant male pressurises, manipulates and/or coerces a female who has access to a child… to sexually abuse that child and/or to make that child available to him to sexually abuse,’ Dr Darjee wrote in his report.

‘The person who drives this offending is the dominant male who is able to use a vulnerable female to do what he is sexually motivated to achieve.’

Shortly after Harper pleaded guilty, an unnamed individual hijacked his Facebook page and changed the cover picture to the words: ‘I’m a pedo’.

The court also heard Harper had suffered a tough childhood with a mother who was ‘physically and mentally abusive and… would often express homophobic and hateful views’.

‘Growing up, you knew you were different and at the age of nine, you knew that you were “not in the right body” but did not know who to speak to about it,’ Judge Karapanagiotidis said.

‘When you expressed an interest in women’s clothing, you were berated.

‘You have been on gender-affirming treatment for three years, including oestrogen gel and a testosterone blocker.

Harper’s lawyers argued the case needed to be understood in the context of ‘the harm associated with being a trans child growing up in an isolated and transphobic environment’.

Booth was also partly to blame for the offending, the court heard.

‘(Harper) felt the man she connected with cared for and was nice to her, and due to her low self-esteem, lack of assertiveness, loneliness, submissiveness and desperation to be noticed and cared for, it was easy for him to pick up on her vulnerability and manipulate her into the master/slave relationship where he took control of her life,’ the judge noted.

‘He then involved her in sexual exchanges and then coerced her to sexually abuse her daughter and take videos and photos to share with him.

‘She [Harper] was not inherently motivated by deviant sexual interests or any other motive, except doing what he told her and keeping him happy, to sexually abuse her daughter.’

Harper’s partner and the mother of their child was shattered by the offending.

‘I’ve been through a lot in my life but this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,’ she said in her victim impact statement.

‘I am just constantly in fear, thinking if her own father could do this to her, what stops a stranger from doing the same? This has completely ruined my trust in others.’

The Department of Justice and Community Safety refused to comment on Harper’s location.

‘When considering placements, Corrections Victoria considers the safety of the individual prisoner and the safety of other prisoners and staff, as well as the security of the prison and relevant legal requirements,’ a spokesman said.

Harper must serve a minimum of 30-months behind bars before being eligible for parole.