Judge unmasks trans zealot's links to shady group
by Jacinta Taylor · Mail OnlineA Transgender activist has been unmasked by one of Britain’s highest courts as being linked to militant trans group Bash Back.
Autumn Redpath, 22, was named by Mr Justice Bright as a ‘respondent’ to an injunction imposed on the group after it hacked the website of the Free Speech Union (FSU) and published lists of its donors online.
Bash Back – campaigning for ‘trans liberation’ – urges its members to form ‘cells’ and plot criminal damage offences against high-profile targets deemed transphobic.
The Mail on Sunday exposed its practices last month in an investigation which highlighted its plans to carry out a series of attacks on senior politicians’ offices – including the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary.
For months, the group has gone to extensive lengths to hide its organisers, including removing internal metadata from public documents and using ultra-secure email systems.
Now, The Mail on Sunday can reveal Redpath is an ‘ethical hacker’ who was born a biological male but identifies as a woman.
Described as an ‘autistic, trans, anarcho-socialist, hackergirl’ on a now-deleted X account, their LinkedIn says they are ‘an aspiring academic in the UK with a keen interest in resistance studies’.
Born in 2003, the activist grew up in a £635,000 stone-built house in a leafy middle England commuter village and worked in a Leeds coffee shop as a teenager.
Social media paints a picture of a close-knit, affluent family. Redpath’s mother has proudly displayed the trans flag in photos and another family member said he was ‘proud to stand alongside the amazing Autumn R every day’.
The activist graduated with a degree in cyber security from Warwick University last summer but caused a stir at the graduation ceremony by unfurling a trans flag bearing the words ‘free Palestine’.
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‘Very happy to graduate from University of Warwick today with a BSc (hons) in Cyber Security. Also very happy to use this platform to call for trans rights and a free Palestine,’ the activist later wrote on LinkedIn.
Pictures posted online appear to show seated gowned academics applauding while the university’s vice chancellor, Professor Stuart Croft, can be seen leaving the stage during the protest. Redpath is now studying a master’s in digital media and culture, also at Warwick.
One of 28 Freedom of Information requests logged by a person with the same name asked the Equality and Human Rights Commission to ‘provide all held records relating to the UK direct action group Bash Back’.
Redpath was linked to the group by cyber security experts commissioned by the FSU, which followed a digital footprint said to have linked Redpath to the creation of Bash Back’s Wikipedia page after an initial reluctance by the police to investigate the system hack.
Within hours of Bash Back publishing donors’ names and the size of their contributions, the FSU obtained an urgent out-of-hours High Court injunction from Judge Bright stopping the hackers from sharing the leaked information.
On Wednesday morning, High Court documents named Redpath as a ‘respondent’ in the injunction. In court appearance via videolink on Friday, the student called on the judge to grant an anonymity order, insisting they were not part of Bash Back.
In the rejected plea, Redpath said: ‘This group attracts a lot of hostility, and I fear there is a real prospect of harm to me.
‘I’m not here to defend Bash Back but having followed them in the past I thought they might claim publishing this information was justified. As an activist group they believe their actions are just, even if they include breaking the law.’