The disguise used by a woman who sexually assaulted a short-sighted teenager after pretending to be a man has been revealed.
Georgia Bilham, 21, was found guilty of sexual assault by kissing but cleared of 16 other sex offences at Chester Crown Court on Wednesday.
In CCTV footage released by Cheshire Police, Bilham is seen dressed in her disguise of a navy blue hoodie over her head while paying for something at a petrol station.
Her trial was told she created an online persona in the name of George Parry to trick the 19-year-old complainant into thinking she was a man.
‘George’ always wore a hood over his head, even in bed, while with the teenager, who, the court was told. ‘George’ claimed to be “paranoid” because of his involvement with ‘Albanian gangsters’.
Bilham said after the first time they met in person the complainant messaged her to say, “There’s something weird about you,” and blocked her on Snapchat.
But there continued to be an online “love-hate relationship”, which became “toxic” at times, the court heard.
Bilham said she believed her cover was blown after crashing her mother’s car into a hedge while out for a drive with the teenager on May 11 2021.
Jurors convicted her of sexually assaulting the girl by kissing her that evening.
Bilham told jurors she believes a police officer called to the scene revealed her true identity to the complainant after checking her driving licence.
She said: “I think they told her I was female. It was not George, it was Georgia.”
The defendant said from that point she believes the teenager knew she was really a woman.
Giving evidence, the complainant’s mother said her daughter told her about seeing someone called George, who she said had social anxiety so kept his hood up.
Bilham admitted being caught up in a “web of lies” but denied getting a “buzz” out of deceiving the teenager, maintaining throughout that she thought the woman she had sex with believed she was a woman.
Asked why she set up the fake Snapchat account pretending to be a boy, Bilham replied: “I just was not happy in myself. I just… it was just more like an escape. I don’t know.
“I was not confident in myself. It was a stupid thing to do. It was a way of not being me.”
Bilham, of Bunbury Road, had denied nine sexual assaults and eight counts of assault by penetration, all between May to August 2021. She will have to sign the sex offenders register and will be sentenced on July 19.
In a statement after the verdict, the Crown Prosectution Service said that the sexual activity that took place “was based on a false pretence – and so did not involve true consent”.
Senior Crown Prosecutor Mairead Neeson, a specially trained prosecutor with CPS Mersey Cheshire’s Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) unit, said: “Sexual offences can be committed in different ways.
“The Crown Prosecution Service’s case here was based upon deceit, manipulation and the lack of genuine consent. We said that the victim didn’t give her true consent to sexual activity with Georgia Bilham, that when the victim agreed to have sexual activity with “George Parry” it was on the basis that George was male and not female and that she had been deceived.
“We said that Bilham’s actions in pretending to be male, deprived the victim of her freedom to choose whether or not to engage in sexual activity.
“This is because a person consents to sexual activity only if they agree by choice and have the freedom and capacity to make that choice.”