A woman who duped her female friend into having sex by pretending to be a man for two years has been jailed for eight years.
Gayle Newland (25), of Willaston, Cheshire, disguised her appearance and voice as she persuaded the other woman to put on a blindfold when they met up.
The pair had sex about 10 times until the complainant finally ripped off her mask and in disbelief saw Newland wearing a prosthetic penis.
Sentencing Newland, Judge Roger Dutton labelled her “an intelligent, obsessional, highly manipulative, deceitful, scheming and thoroughly determined young woman”.
During the trial Newland claimed her accuser, also aged 25, always knew she was pretending to be a man as they engaged in role play while struggling with their sexuality.
She said no blindfold was used and she did not strap bandages to her chest or wear a woollen hat and swimsuit to conceal the fact she was a woman.
But in September, a jury at Chester Crown Court convicted the marketing manager from Willaston, Cheshire, of three counts of sexual assault at the complainant’s flat in Chester.
Bogus profile
Newland created a bogus Facebook profile in the name of Kye Fortune and was then said to have taken on the persona of Kye as she mimicked a man to speak many times on the phone with the victim after their first contact in 2011.
When they finally decided to meet up in February 2013, the complainant told the jury that Kye had asked her to wear a blindfold because he was insecure about his looks following supposed life-saving brain surgery.
They were said to have spent more than 100 hours together and the encounters would include the complainant wearing a blindfold when they watched television together and on one occasion even when sunbathing.
The prosecution said it was an “unusual case” set against an “extraordinary background” in which the defendant targeted the “naive and vulnerable” complainant — who said she was not gay — in an elaborate deception.
But Newland’s legal team argued the complainant’s account was simply “impossible to believe” and that a woman of her sexual experience could not have been tricked into thinking she had had sex with a man.
Newland, of Hooton Road, created the character of Fortune when she was 13 because she found it difficult to speak to girls in real life.
By the age of 15 or 16, she went on to develop a Facebook profile of “half-Filipino, half-Latino” Fortune by downloading photographs from an American man’s Myspace page.
Kye and Newland shared the same birth date, both liked RnB music and “chick flicks” and had a dog named Gypsy, the court heard.
Second approach
The jury heard another woman said she had been duped by Newland into believing she was communicating with a man. She said she added the “good-looking” Kye as a Facebook friend and an online and phone relationship developed.
The woman suggested to him that they meet up but said he always came up with an excuse before she discovered by chance that Kye was Newland in reality.
Judge Roger Dutton previously told the court that Newland had “serious issues surrounding her personality”.
On Thursday Judge Dutton noted the defendant had sent the complainant “numerous” e-mails apologising for what she had done to her after the mask was ripped off.
“Your defence was that (the complainant) knew who you were from the outset and that this was just role play,” he said. “Those apologies were because you knew the game was up and that your cruel deception had been discovered.”
He said he was “quite sure” that the psychological impact upon the complainant was “severe” and would be “long-lasting”.
Newland’s behaviour amounted to “a callous breach of the trust that your friend had in you”, he added.
The judge pointed to Newland’s various disorders identifed in a psychiatric report including social anxiety disorder, a personality disorder, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Sexuality issues
It was said by her counsel, Nigel Power QC, that these were closely linked with her issues of sexuality, with them exacerbating each other.
A history of low self-esteem and “blurred gender lines” added to a “very troubling picture”, said the judge. But he said he did not agree with Mr Power’s submission that he could depart from sentencing guidelines in such an exceptional case and not impose an immediate custodial term.
“These offences are so serious that only an immediate custodial sentence would in any way properly reflect the serious nature of your conduct,” he said. “As an aspect of mercy I do not increase the starting point beyond eight years.”
Newland was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for each count, all to run concurrently.
PA