A true crime story stranger than fiction.
Warning: This post deals with sexual assault and may be triggering for some readers.
UPDATE:
Gayle Newland, 25, has been convicted of impersonating a man to persuade her female friend into sex.
The jury convicted the defendant of three counts of sexual assault but cleared her of two other counts of sexual assault.
The UK Telegraph reports that Newland — from Cheshire in the UK — was found guilty of committing sexual assaults at the victim’s apartment. She was found not guilty of other acts alleged to have taken place at hotels in Chester.
Judge Roger Dutton told the court Newland had “serious issues surrounding her personality”.
He added: “Sentencing guidelines are quite clear that imprisonment is inevitable but I need a good deal of further examination before I take that further step.”
Newland now awaits sentencing.
Previously, Mamamia wrote:
Laura* had been dating Kye Fortune for two years when she learned a bizarre truth about him: He didn’t exist.
Instead, the person Laura had been having sex with was allegedly her female friend, 25-year-old Gayle Newland, in disguise.
That’s the story that Chester Crown Court in the UK has heard this week — and the details are so shocking, they’re making headlines internationally.
According to the UK Telegraph, Laura first met “Kye” via in 2011 Facebook, where his profile picture showed a half-Filipino, half-Latino man.
“When you Googled him it came up with a Twitter account, Facebook account, a Bebo account from years ago. He seemed like a feasible person, they all seemed like feasible accounts,” the Daily Mail cites Laura as saying.
Related: She found out her husband had another wife on Facebook.
Laura and Kye got to know one another and began speaking on the phone. Laura noticed her new love interest’s voice was high-pitched, but was allegedly told that was due to his Filipino heritage.
Then Kye shared some terrible news: He had been involved in a car accident, and doctors had discovered during treatment that he had a brain tumour. He was in hospital and not well enough to see her, Kye allegedly said.
The two continued to bond through their regular chats, and Kye began to make grand plans for their future together.
“He was saying how much I had helped him get through his illness. (He said) it was a sign, we should get married, we should have kids, we were going to do all sorts of things,” Laura later told police.
At one point, Kye even sent her a ring through the mail and she considered they were engaged to be married, Laura said in court.
Related: ‘Engagement ring judgement is the only reason I want a nice ring.’
Then things allegedly took a turn for the physical.
Kye said he was finally well enough to meet up, but allegedly asked that Laura wear a blindfold as he was “anxious about the way he looked” due to scarring after his surgery. He also allegedly said he was self-conscious about the fact he “could not walk properly” due to nerve damage.
Laura agreed to the conditions, and in February 2013 arrived at the hotel room in Chester, Cheshire where they’d arranged to meet.
The bed was strewn with rose petals and Hello Kitty toys, but Kye was nowhere in sight, opting to wait in the bathroom until Laura secured her blindfold.
After Laura covered her eyes with a sleeping mask and a scarf, Kye entered the bedroom and the pair had sex for the first time.
The alleged victim later told police: “I know it sounds pathetic, but I was just so happy at the time because I was in love with this person and we’d built this beautiful relationship.
“It was just based on, you know, our minds and all the other things that we had in common so I just felt grateful that I’d finally got a proper relationship.”
The pair continued to see each other for another five months — each time, with a blindfold in place. But on their last meeting, on 30 June 2013, Laura discovered the alleged truth.
“When I was having sex I grabbed for the back of his head and my hand got caught on something. It did not feel right,” Laura said in an interview with police later heard by the jury.
“I was sat on the bed, he was standing up. Something in my mind said ‘pull it (the blindfold) off, pull it off’. I just pulled it off. Gayle was just standing there…
“I just couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it. Straight away she held her hand down over her face and said ‘it’s not what you think’.”
Newsland, 25, was a friend of Laura’s from the University of Chester, where both women were students.
She had allegedly used a prosthetic penis during sex with Laura, and disguised her gender by binding her chest with bandages that she insisted were there to protect a heart monitor.
Laura told the court but she felt ‘sickened’ at the discovery that Kye wasn’t real — and that she’d been having sex with Newland instead.
“I had no reason to believe this person wasn’t who they said they were. I genuinely believe that if I didn’t find out that day, this would still be going on now,’ she said, according to the Daily Mail.
“I’m still in shock now that I allowed myself to go through it. Coincidences keep flashing in front of me, like how Gayle and Kye shared the same birthday.”
Related: What happened to Casey Donovan is so common it has a name: Catfishing.
Newland is facing five counts assault by penetration, which she has denied.
Newland has claimed in court that Laura knew she was a woman all along — and that they were both “going along with some sort of fantasy” that she was Kye, the Daily Mail reports.
The prosecution has argued that Laura never consented to sex with the use of a prosthetic, meaning that Newland “sexually assaulted” her.
The trial continues.
*The victim’s real identity has not been revealed.
If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.
Related content:
Casey Donovan speaks out about being catfished.
Top Comments
I'm the US and 15 years ago I was a victim of what is now called "catfishing." People do stupid things, especially when emotions are involved, and we have no right, nor are we in any position to judge them on the WHY of their decisions. Unless, of course, those decisions were illegal and they are now being judged (and even then only if you are on the jury do you really have any "right" to involve your thoughts).
Stupidity isn't consent. Making a bad decision in regard to relationships isn't consent. Regardless of the reasons behind her actions in the relationship, the person she thought she was in a relationship with, never existed. It was a character, a persona, a fake, created by someone else. Whether she chose to wear a blindfold, to only sleep with the person with the lights off, or an equal CHOICE in her relationship doesn't matter.
She thought she was making love to person A when it was actually person B because person A didn't actually exist. This isn't someone lying about a gender change, their history, marital situation, or possible STD status. This is about someone who used fraud, lies, and deceit to trick someone into sleeping with them thus removing the chance for informed and complete consent from the other individual.
No one deserves to be violated, to be broken, to have their reality destroyed in such a devastating fashion, regardless of how ignorant, or stupid they may be, and no matter how unrealistic that now destroyed "reality" was.
Your opinion on this situation will be based, most likely, on your views on the purposes of laws and what actions people should and shouldn't be held accountable for. This woman will spend years, if not decades, fully recovering from this entire ordeal and while it may help her grow as an individual in the end she in no way DESERVED it nor is she to blame.
People are so awful, glad to see such an intelligent comment :)
I honestly can't believe that a woman can be stupid enough to meet someone in a hotel room totally blindfolded & then continue to do so for months!! Seriously, did no warning bells go off that this is a wacko? Everyone on here is writing about consent & I'm just here scratching my head. Did she not feel that it was not a real penis? Didn't they have oral sex? Sounds completely fishy to me!
Yeah, so fishy that the perpetrator has now been convicted of RAPE among other things. Yet you're focusing on and vilifying the poor victim and not the predator?!
Also, not everyone has oral sex so why is that even a relevant question?