A transgender prisoner has been found dead in her cell at an all-male prison.
Joanne Latham was found hanging by a prison officer at HMP Woodhill, Milton Keynes, in the early hours of Friday morning, the BBC reported.
She is the second transgender woman to have been found dead in an all male prison in as many months.
The 38-year-old, who is believed to have been in the early stages of changing her gender, was discovered by officers at around 4.02am on Friday after her cell door was barricaded and the “observation panel” covered.
"After receiving no response from her, staff requested permission to enter the cell," the Prison Service report noted.
Paramedics were called to her cell at around 5.40am but attempts to resuscitate Latham stopped at 6am, with the prisoner pronounced dead by a doctor at 6.20am.
Latham’s death follows that of Vikki Thompson, 21, who was found dead at HMP Leeds. Thompson had said she would kill herself were she sent to a male prison.
Following Thompson’s death, the government announced it would review its policy on transgender prisoners.
Latham was convicted of attempted murder in 2001 and handed a life sentence. In 2007 she was handed further life sentences for the attempted murder of a prisoner at HMP Frankland, Durham, and of a fellow patient at Nottinghamshire’s Rampton secure hospital in 2011.
A Prison Service spokesperson said there would be an investigation into her death by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
