UK Jury hears two drastically different stories in a case of she said, she said.
A 25 year old woman living in Britain has been arrested on five counts of sexual assault.
Gayle Newland has admitted to using a fake Facebook account to meet and interact with women online under a male identity. She has denied the five counts of sexual assault.
The complainant has testified that she agreed to wear a blindfold at every meeting with Newland saying she believed Newland to be a man named Kye Fortune who was extremely self conscious about his appearance due to a car accident and brain tumor.
She testified “Every time I met up with Kye Fortune, I either had the mask on already or he would wait outside the door and I would put it on.”
It was revealed during the trial that the two had spent an estimated 100 hours together and that the complainant would wear a blindfold at each meeting.
Newland testified that the complainant knew that the Kye profile was a fake. Newland says that she first made contact with the complainant in 2011 when they met at a bar.
She continued to testify and say “She told me that no one knew she was gay, that she couldn’t admit it to herself.” and that she had told her that she used the Kye profile to interact with women.
In the witness box when she was asked to explain the profile, Newland said she had been using the alter ego for years online and stated
“I had never spoken to any gay people and especially in those years you didn’t see gay people on television. It was quite a negative thing. I just felt that speaking to people in real life I couldn’t really be myself.” She added “I guess being gay, it is kind of secluded. It was always quite a negative thing, I wasn’t confident being myself.”
The complainant stated that Newland would disguise herself by binding her breasts and wearing a hat in order to pass herself off as a man.
Matthew Corbett-Jones, the Prosecutor, stated that “though the woman consented to sex, the defendant sexually assaulted her as at no time did she consent with Newland, using a prosthetic penis.”
When asked by the barrister if the bandages were only used once by Newland at the complainant’s insistence to “hide the fact” that she was “with a woman”, the complainant stated “Not at all. I am quite a proud person. If I was with a woman I would tell everyone it was my choice.”
The trial continues.