Killer wins legal aid fight

A double killer has been granted legal aid in his bid to become the first prisoner to have a sex change operation.

Doug Wakefield, 49, serving life at Frankland Jail, Durham, wants to sue the Prison Service for the right to have surgery on the NHS. Wakefield, who answers only to the name Dee, was convicted at Leeds Crown Court 22 years ago of murdering his uncle with a garden fork and then burying the body in a garden.

He later received a manslaughter conviction after killing a fellow prisoner at Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. Regarded as one of the most violent men behind bars, he twice took prison officers hostage, trying to kill one of them.