Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Well, this isn’t the first time 27-year-old Gayle Newland has been found guilty of tricking a female friend into having sex by pretending to be a man.

Serious.

In 2015 Newland was sentenced to eight years in prison, but “quashed at the court of appeal last October following criticism of the judge’s summing up and she was released from jail pending a retrial,” reports The Guardian.

During the retrial, when a new jury again ruled Newland is guilty on three counts of sexual assault by penetration, the court once again heard the details of what happened.

Described in court as “an imaginative and persuasive liar”, Newland adopted a male online persona called Kye Fortune in 2011 so she could seduce a fellow student at Chester University in the UK:

She persuaded the student to wear a blindfold whenever they met, and wore a large strap-on prosthetic penis [with testicles] in order to dupe the woman into having penetrative sex.

The jury heard that the complainant not only wore the blindfold during sex but also for at least 100 hours when the pair were just hanging out – going for drives, sunbathing and even “watching” films together.

For a year the pair swapped messages and photos online, and talked regularly for hours on the phone, but did not meet, the court heard.

“Kye” provided various excuses as to why “he” could not meet in person – because he had been “badly injured and disfigured”, had a brain tumour and was being treated in hospital, that he had had a seizure and was in intensive care. The complainant, “perhaps naively on reflection”, accepted these excuses, said Simon Medland, QC, for the prosecution.

During that period Kye told the woman he had a friend called Gayle, who also happened to be studying at Chester University. This was Gayle Newland, the jury was told.

The two women met, using their real names, and became firm friends, with the student confiding in Newland about her relationship with Kye.

Eventually, in February 2013, Kye agreed to meet up with the student at a hotel in Chester:

“He” (really, Newland) laid down a series of conditions that Medland conceded the jury might find “rather odd”.

The complainant was to remain blindfold throughout – because Kye was ashamed of his injuries. And he was bandaged around his chest because of a heart condition and had to wear a “medically necessary sort of bodysuit” during sex. In addition, he would have to wear a hat because of scarring caused by an operation on his brain tumour.

This went of for months.

Then, on June 30 of that year, the two had sex for the final time. Halfway through, the student ripped off her blindfold and made “a very disturbing discovery indeed” – Kye was, in fact, her friend Gayle.

The complainant then ran out of her own house in shock.

While giving evidence, Newland said that she was “a lesbian but had struggled with her sexuality”:

She admitted she created the alter-ego aged 15, using it to befriend other young women. She suffered from anxiety issues, she said, and using the alias made it easier to forge virtual relationships on social media.

If there’s one lesson that’s to be learnt, it’s the importance of having a variety of role models for children, so they don’t grow up lying to people about who they really are.

[source:theguardian]