A woman has been convicted of impersonating a man for more than two years in an “astonishing deception” to trick her female friend into sex.<\/p>\n
Gayle Newland, 27, of Willaston, Cheshire, created a “disturbingly complex” online persona to achieve her own “bizarre sexual satisfaction”.<\/p>\n
A retrial jury at Manchester Crown Court found her guilty of committing sexual assault by using a prosthetic penis without her victim’s consent.<\/p>\n
She will be sentenced on 20 July.<\/p>\n
The complainant, who gave evidence behind a curtain, told the court she was persuaded by the defendant to wear a blindfold at all times when they met, and only found out she was having sex with Newland – rather than a man – when she finally took off her mask.<\/p>\n
She said she thought she was having sex with Kye Fortune – a fake Facebook profile Newland created at the age of 15 using an American man’s photographs and videos.<\/p>\n
The complainant said Kye told her he was undergoing treatment for cancer and was paranoid about his physical appearance.<\/p>\n
She told the court she agreed to his demands for her to wear a blindfold, consisting of a sleeping mask and a light scarf, because she was in love.<\/p>\n
The complainant, also in her mid 20s, said: “There was no point until the day I took the blindfold off that I thought for one second that a woman was the person behind this.”<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Simon Medland QC asked her: “To who were you consenting?”<\/p>\n
The complainant replied: “With Kye Fortune. The person I knew from the photos, the person I had spoken to, the person I shared all my dreams with, the person who I thought was half-Filipino half-Latino.”<\/p>\n
Newland, who graduated from the University of Chester with a degree in marketing and creative writing, told the court the pair met in a nightclub in 2011.<\/p>\n
Newland claimed the complainant knew about the Kye Fortune persona and the pair began communicating in character.<\/p>\n
The defendant told the court she never dressed as a man and no blindfold was ever used when they had intercourse on about 10 occasions at the complainant’s flat in Chester.<\/p>\n
Newland claimed her accuser always knew she was pretending to be Kye as they engaged in role play while struggling with their sexuality.<\/p>\n
Mr Medland QC said: “This manipulative, deceitful and very crafty young woman went to such astonishing lengths to control the complainant’s life and make her do the things the defendant wanted her to do.”<\/p>\n
Newland was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and cleared of a fourth count. She was told by the judge she would have to sign the sex offenders register.<\/p>\n
The Recorder of Manchester, Judge David Stockdale QC, granted Newland bail ahead of sentencing but told her the “overwhelming likelihood” was that she would receive “a significant immediate custodial sentence”.<\/p>\n
The verdicts can be reported after reporting restrictions imposed at the start of the retrial were lifted.<\/p>\n
Newland was jailed for eight years in November 2015 after she was convicted of the same offences by another jury at Chester Crown Court.<\/p>\n
The conviction was quashed in the Court of Appeal in December and a retrial was ordered after it was ruled that the trial judge’s summing up of the case was not fair and balanced.<\/p>\n
Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"