British drug smuggler avoids jail in Jamaica, claiming to be hermaphrodite

Thursday, March 25, 2004

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (AFP): A British drug smuggler caught trying to leave Jamaica with nearly 16 kilograms (35 pounds) of marijuana avoided a jail sentence Monday by claiming to be a hermaphrodite, or a person who has both male and female features. 

A perplexed Judge Valerie Stephens gave Jonathon Featherstone of London a suspended six-month jail sentence and fined the individual 4,800 US dollars after he -- or she -- admitted to trying to smuggle the drugs out of Jamaica on March 16.

The judge was presented with a conundrum when an attorney for 18-year-old Featherstone, whose passport identifies the bearer as a male, declared that his client was in fact a "legal and functional female who can get pregnant and experiences normal female biological functions." 

The attorney said Featherstone "shared male and female characteristics including genitals" and this would pose a problem for Jamaica's penal system because it had no arrangements for inmates with such physical characteristics. 

In court, Jonathon showed all the appearances of a petite woman with carefully shaped eyebrows and dyed hair.

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