British Transgender Inmate Divorces Lesbian Wife After Fight

A convicted murderer who underwent a sex change and was sent to a womens' prison is divorcing her lesbian wife (who is also doing time for murder) after the couple got into a huge fight, the U.K. newspaper the Daily Star reported.

Tai Pilley, who used to be Douglas Wakefield, was sent to jail 38 years ago after strangling his uncle and stabbing him 48 times with a garden fork. Pilley, 63, married 47-year-old Thelma Purchase while behind bars.

The couple's relationship ended after they had a "violent bust-up" over the relationship Purchase had with another female inmate. Prison officials then moved Purchase, a mother of three, to a different prison in South England.

Purchase, who was a caregiver from Staffordshire (a landlocked county in England's West Midlands), was put in prison for at least 30 years after she suffocated a disabled man to get �70,000 (more than $113,000) that he left to her in his will.

The transgender inmate, who was known as one of the most dangerous men in prison after he killed an inmate and took prison officers hostage, is now divorcing Purchase because of the close friendship she formed.

"Purchase was getting very close to another lifer and Wakefield hit the roof. They had a massive bust-up on the wing and had to be separated," a source told the newspaper. "They were warring for days and the governor took the decision to move Purchase to a prison in London to calm the situation."

"Wakefield was devastated at first but has been telling fellow inmates that he couldn't trust Purchase and now wants a divorce because he says the wedding was a mistake," the source added.

When the ultra conservative website Free Republic reported the story a number of readers left insensitive comments.

"So a guy has a sex change to a woman but still preferred women? I guess he was a woman trapped in a man's body but he was a lesbian," one commenter wrote. "Talk about messed up when a society will provide a sex change operation to a PRISONER so they will be happier."

"Homosexuals infiltrated the psychiatry profession and news media. They tell us it is not abnormal anymore," another reader wrote. "They won't tell us THEY are afflicted. Don't ask, don't tell is only a bad thing in the military."

Pilley and Purchase held a civil partnership in 2010.