Two convicted murderers have become the first couple to have a same-sex wedding in a U.K. prison after marrying over the weekend at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire.
Mikhail Ivan Gallatinov, 40, and fellow inmate Mark Goodwin, 31, tied the knot in the prison’s visitor’s center on Friday, reports The Mirror. The couple met while imprisoned and have fallen for each other over the last two years. At the ceremony, the couple exchanged personal vows and simple wedding bands, calling each other “soul partners” who would be “forever together.”
Gallatinov is a convicted paedophile who was jailed in 1997, aged 23, for strangling Adrian Kaminsky, who he had met through a gay chat line. He was given a minimum sentence of 20 years for what the judge in his trial called a “cold-blooded, well-planned, callous, chilling and apparently motiveless killing.”
Goodwin was given a minimum sentence of 18 years in 2007 for the murder of a gay man, described by the police as “a savage, senseless homophobic attack that resulted in the death of a harmless man.”
Marriages have been permitted in British prisons since 1983, but this is the first registered same-sex marriage in a prison since they were legalized in the UK in March last year. The two prisoners are currently kept in separate wings of the prison, and will not be allowed to share a cell.
Human rights activist Peter Tatchell admitted that the pair “committed horrific murders,” but defended their right to marry in a statement to Buzzfeed:
“Marriage is a human right for same-sex couples and even for people whose lives we may find reprehensible … [The] aim of prison is to also reform and rehabilitate offenders. … Being in love and married might help stabilize these men; giving them a focus away from a life of crime.”
Gay inmates in the U.S. would also theoretically be permitted to marry in states with same-sex marriage rights, but Buzzfeed reports that there’s no evidence that any prisoners have as yet done so.