Woman Who Seduced Her Friend Under a Fake Male Identity Found Guilty

Gayle Newland, the UK woman accused of impersonating a man in order to trick her friend into having sex with her, was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault.

The pair are reported to have had sex about 10 times before the victim took off her blindfold and discovered not “Kye Fortune,” the invented male persona Newland had used to court the victim online and over the phone, but Gayle Newland herself, allegedly wearing a swimsuit, wooly hat, and prosthetic penis.

“Kye” asked the victim to wear a blindfold so she wouldn’t see scars accrued after a car accident and brain tumor recovery, but it is still somewhat hard to believe that a woman would agree, in 2015, to have sex with someone they met on the Internet without being able to look at their face.

Newland claimed that she and the victim were simply engaging in role-play, and that the accusation was a result of the victim’s struggle with her sexuality. She denied the use of the blindfold. Both women appear to be somewhat emotionally compromised, with Newland admitting to having attempted suicide after the confrontation and suffering a panic attack in court, and the victim’s admission that she was “so desperate for love” and told friends they were engaged; additionally, according to the Telegraph:

She said she was not attracted to women and said, although it sounded “sick”, she would have preferred to be have been raped by a man because she could not rationalise it.

According to the prosecution, via the Telegraph, “It was an ‘unusual’ case set against an ‘extraordinary background’ in which the defendant targeted the ‘naive and vulnerable’ complainant.”

After finding Newland guilty on three counts of sexual assault and cleared of two, the judge told the court that Newland had “serious issues surrounding her personality.”