Doomed by her body

20 November 2004

Health experts recommended a sex change for career
criminal Joanne Martin,
believing she would be less likely to reoffend. They
were wrong. Oskar Alley
and Haydon Dewes report.

Joanne Martin had wanted to be a woman since her
teens and used the agony of
being trapped in a man's body as an excuse for some
of her crime sprees.

She was the "entry man" in a sophisticated
Wellington inner-city burglary
crew that stole $460,000 just $20,000 of which has
been recovered.

Martin said she was saving her crime proceeds for a
sex-change operation,
but had no money to pay reparations when she was
caught.

She has 157 criminal convictions dating back to
1984, 87 of them for
burglary. Until last month she had spent barely a
week outside prison in the
past four years.

Yet her dreams of becoming a woman have been partly
realised courtesy of
the taxpayer, who picked up the bill for the
precursor sex-change surgery in
August.

In the late 1990s Martin was originally rejected as
a candidate for a sex
change when assessed by a mental health worker.

But another forensic psychiatrist later diagnosed
her as suffering from
gender dysphoria; put simply, a woman trapped in a
man's body.

While a sentenced prisoner at Rimutaka Prison in
late August, Martin was
driven by Corrections staff to Wellington Hospital,
where she had a
preliminary sex-change operation.

The procedure, a bilateral orchidectomy, is the
surgical removal of the
testes. The surgery, which costs more than $2200,
was performed at taxpayer
expense by Capital and Coast Health.

An orchidectomy which is irreversible requires
an incision in the
scrotum. The testicles are then detached from blood
vessels and from the vas
deferens, which carries sperm to the prostate before
ejaculation.

The procedure's effects begin almost immediately.
With the testes removed,
testosterone production halts markedly and levels
within the body drop
dramatically, reducing hair growth in male areas
such as the chest.

Libido is diminished and an erection cannot be
achieved or maintained.
Side-effects can include weight gain, depression and
moodiness.

The procedure is popular with transsexuals because
it surgically removes
part of the male genitals with the testosterone
levels reduced, patients
taking female hormones develop more quickly into
women. Martin's
orchidectomy was to be done as day surgery but, when
she developed an
allergic reaction to penicillin, she stayed in
hospital overnight, watched
by a guard.

The next day she was returned to Rimutaka. Last
month The Dominion Post
revealed that the surgery had been performed.

Martin was born Jon Michael Enright in Lower Hutt in
1969, to an Auckland
woman and an American electrician father, and would
later say that by the
age of five she was aware something was wrong with
her body.

In the following years she dressed as a girl,
borrowing her sister's clothes
and playing with her toys. Enright played and
socialised only with girls and
was horrified to realise that those in her playgroup
did not have a penis.

She insisted on dressing as a girl, only changing
when she had to leave the
house.

Her criminal career coincided with the onset of
puberty. She would later
describe her physical male development as an awful
time. She was disgusted
by her male smell and hated playing sport.

In her early teens Enright was repeatedly placed by
Social Welfare in the
Epuni Boys Home. One former staffer remembers Jon
Enright as a gentle,
albeit mischievous, boy, who chuckled a lot.

Even at that age Enright displayed an excellent
understanding of electronics
and impressed staff and other boys by pulling apart
a video player and
repairing and rebuilding it.

Enright's formal police record begins with a youth
court appearance in 1984,
aged 14, on a charge of unlawfully getting into a
car. She has been in and
out of prison ever since.

At 17 Enright headed for Auckland, where she ended
up living in a flat with
several gay and transsexual residents. One gave
Enright stilboestrol, a
potent female hormone used to develop delayed female
puberty and during
menopause.

Enright later found a doctor willing to prescribe
the drug and spent nearly
a year living as a woman before being sent to Mt
Eden Prison.

Her most serious offence to date took place in 1988
when a routine burglary
went wrong. Confronted by a security guard, Enright
stabbed him with a
screwdriver, leaving the guard close to death. She
was jailed for 4-1/2
years.

While serving that sentence, she legally changed her
name to Joanne Michelle
Martin, in honour of her "adopted parents", Melody
Martin and her
transsexual girlfriend Renata Taylor.

In May this year, Melody Martin was a key
prosecution witness in the
conviction of killer driver Gavin Hawthorn, who
crashed his car while trying
to flee from police in Greytown, killing a
passenger.

The "parents" were Hawthorn's flatmates and Melody
Martin testified that he
had admitted to her that he caused the passenger's
death.

In December 1999, Joanne Martin was one of four men
arrested when detectives
smashed a crime ring that had carried out $460,000
worth of burglaries at
inner-city buildings.

Martin was the gang's entry man, disabling security
doors and lifts. As a
child Martin had a computer and developed a
fascination with all things
electrical, encouraged by her electrician father,
who also later worked as a
lift technician.

Detectives said the inner-city crime spree was
conducted with an "unusually
high level of organisation and sophistication".

Martin, who was on a suspended jail sentence when
she committed some of the
burglaries, pleaded guilty to 41 charges. She told
police that she had been
pressured into the offending and received little or
no payment. What money
she did receive was spent on hormone therapy and
saving for a sex-change
operation.

One of Martin's burglaries consisted of breaking
into a Family Planning
Clinic and stealing paint and 142 boxes of condoms.

In March 2000, she stood in the dock wearing red
lipstick and a little
black dress as Judge Craig Thompson said she was
an "incorrigible
professional burglar" who used her electronic skills
to bypass security
systems. She was sentenced to five years in prison.

In April last year, Martin was freed after serving
two-thirds of that
sentence. Within 48 hours she had offended again,
breaking into a Wellington
business and stealing a van, which she then drove to
other burglaries.

Convicted of five burglary charges, assaulting
police, stealing the van,
reckless use of the van and failing to stop, she was
handed an extra six
months and ordered to complete the remaining third
of her earlier sentence.

On September 15 this year, she was freed on parole
but failed to report to
her probation officer within 72 hours as required.
On September 18, she
disabled the secure doors of an inner-city building
and stole cash from the
premises.

Detective Senior Sergeant Shane Cotter, who headed
the 1999 Operation Multi
case that saw Martin jailed for six years, says she
excelled at burglary.

He describes her as polite, intelligent and
reasonable to deal with "if
you accidentally bumped into her in the street it
would be a polite
experience" but those who did not treat her as a
woman would feel her
wrath.

Before her latest release, Mr Cotter visited Martin
in prison. She wanted
help finding a flat and honest employment upon
release, he said. She had
considerable computer expertise and was also a dab
hand at cooking and as a
seamstress.

But despite leaving his business card, Mr Cotter
never received a call.

When told that a psychiatric assessment had
suggested Martin was less likely
to reoffend if she had a sex change, Mr Cotter said
that view had merit.

"Sometimes you need individual solutions for
individual people."

© Fairfax New Zealand Limited 2004