By Editor,Max Aitchison

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This evil Aussie dad molested his own five-year-old daughter for the pleasure of an American paedophile he met online. But it’s WHERE he’s now doing his jail time that is causing outrage

READ MORE: Transgender prisoners are STILL in women’s jails

By MAX AITCHISON, POLITICAL REPORTER, AUSTRALIA

Published: 17:48 BST, 27 September 2025 | Updated: 17:48 BST, 27 September 2025

A paedophile father convicted of abusing his five-year-old daughter is being held in a female prison because he subsequently identified as a woman.

Autumn Tulip Harper, 25, who was born a man but now identifies as a woman, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison after he was snared by cops in a global bust of a paedophile ring in July last year.

Australian police, who were acting on a tip from law enforcement in the United States, raided Harper’s home in Clayton South in Melbourne’s south-east on September 15, 2023, and seized his Samsung phone.

They discovered the father had been subjecting his five-year-old daughter to ‘persistent sexual abuse’ between May and June of that year and had sent 77 child abuse files over Discord to a paedophile friend in the United States.

The details of Harper’s offending are too harrowing to publish.

Harper was originally referred to in court proceedings under his male-born name, which the Daily Mail has chosen to withhold to protect the identity of the victim.

It is unclear whether they officially changed their name to Autumn Tulip Harper. However, they were listed in court documents under their male birth name as late as November last year.

Now a source within the Victorian criminal justice system has revealed that Harper is housed in Dame Phyllis Frost Centre – one of two women’s prisons in the state.

Autumn Tulip Harper (pictured), 25, who was born a man but now identifies as a woman, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison after she was snared by cops in a cross-border bust of a paedophile ring in July last year.

‘I’ve just lost so much faith in the justice system,’ the source said.

‘How can a man commit a crime and then be treated like a woman because he claims he is one?

‘Throughout the whole court case he saw himself as the victim and took no responsibility or showed any remorse for his actions.’

The shocking case, which was first reported by feminist news and opinion website Reduxx, has gone largely unreported in mainstream media.

Jasmine Sussex, who founded Women’s Voices Australia, 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.’

Harper (pictured) was originally referred to in court proceedings under his male-born name, which the Daily Mail has chosen to withhold to protect the identity of the victim

Master/slave dynamic

Harper was only caught because US authorities had arrested a paedophile who was given the pseudonym Samuel Booth in court documents.

After raiding Harper’s house and seizing his devices, detectives discovered that 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,’ Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis stated.

Harper would initially express ‘hesitance and concern’, once telling Booth that ‘she is my daughter and I shouldn’t be doing it’ but then still carrying out the abuse.

‘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”.’

The details are too graphic to be published, but in one of the videos, the father asks their daughter if she likes it and she can be heard saying ‘no’.

When Booth learned that he was going to be arrested, he told Harper to delete their messages which they did.

However, police officers were able to recover their chat log. They found 19 files of Harper sexually abusing their daughter.

They 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 told Harper.

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

A source within Victorian criminal justice system has revealed Harper is housed in Dame Phyllis Frost Centre – one of two women’s prisons in the state.

Vulnerable female

Harper’s lawyers argued that at the time of the offending they were ‘completely lacking connection in life’ and were experiencing ‘pervasive feelings of rejection and lack of self-worth’.

Harper, who was given the pseudonym Hilary Moloney by the courts, 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.

Dr Rajan Darjee, a forensic psychiatrist, said that at the time of the offending, 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, usually her own, 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.’

Dr Darjee thought the risk of Harper reoffending was low.

‘She is highly unlikely to commit a further sexual offence, unless she finds herself in a similar situation, being pressured or coerced by a man,’ he stated.

Shortly after they pleaded guilty, an unnamed individual hijacked Harper’s Facebook page, changing her cover picture to the words: ‘I’m a pedo’.

‘(Name redacted) pleaded guilty to creating and distributing child abuse material. Will be sentenced very soon,’ a post read. The Facebook page was later deleted.

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

Harper’s crimes could have received a maximum sentence of 25 years in jail, but they were given a discount because of the guilty pleas.

The court heard the father 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,’ the judge noted.

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

The court also heard Harper became more isolated when his childhood friends died in a ‘suicide pact’ and his mother’s boyfriend was abusive.

At the age of 17, he first met the woman who would become the mother of his child, but by 2019 he started to explore his transgender identity.

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

His 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 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 was supported by Beyond Bricks and Bars, an organisation that helps trans people in prison.

One of the employees told the court that ‘as a young trans woman (Harper) would be particularly at risk in prison’.

The court also heard that Harper was ‘suffering from major depression of moderate severity with anxious distress’ and would be a suicide risk in prison.

The judge handed Harper a sentence of four years and nine months imprisonment.

They will be eligible for parole after serving a minimum of two years and six months.

Harper’s Facebook account was hijacked shortly before she was sentenced

A mother’s pain

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

She told the court she was struggling to cope and her work and sleep had suffered terribly as a result.

‘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.

‘To have a child with someone and have your trust in them, even after breaking up and co-parenting, and then find out they’ve done these things.

‘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.’

She said their daughter, while too young to understand the gravity of her father’s crimes, had suffered behavioural issues but was doing a lot better since they were imprisoned.

The Daily Mail approached the Victorian court system to seek clarification regarding Harper’s current status

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.

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This evil Aussie dad molested his own five-year-old daughter for the pleasure of an American paedophile he met online. But it’s WHERE he’s now doing his jail time that is causing outrage

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