Georgia
Woman guilty of assault by kissing after posing as man to trick teen girl into relationship
A 21-year-old British woman who pretended to be a man to trick a teenage girl into a relationship was found guilty of sexual assault by kissing and not guilty of another 16 sex charges Wednesday.
Georgia Bilham, of Cheshire, was seen smiling and waving in photos obtained by The Sun as she left court over accusations that she sexually abused a visually-impaired 19-year-old girl who believed she was a boy.
She was cleared of the majority of charges she faced — including eight counts of sexual assault and eight counts of assault by penetration, the BBC reported.
Bilham admitted to posing as a man by the name of “George Parry” on Snapchat in 2017.
The woman told the Chester Crown Court that she got trapped into a “web of lies” after wearing wear baggy clothes to pose as a man when with the teen.
She said she believed her alleged victim, who is short-sighted, realized she was not a man before they had developed a sexual relationship and denied having stuffed her pants to mimic a penis.
She would wear a hood over her head even while in bed and refused to remove her boxer shorts blaming purported links to an Albanian crime gang and stab wound scars. She also took off the victim’s glasses when they were together, prosecutors said.
In May 2021, the pair got into a car crash and Bilham handed her license to police revealing her true identity. She said from then on, she believed her partner knew that she was a woman.
Bilham admitted that she had always been a tomboy, but never wished to change her gender identity. She claimed she posed as a man only to hide her real identity from the girl.
During the trial, her defense attorney asked her: “How do you think your mum would have reacted if she knew that you were in a same-sex relationship?”
“I don’t think she would have been very happy about it,” Bilham replied.
She said she didn’t want their family and friends to find out about their relationship if her identity was revealed.
Bilham claimed to have created the alter-ego as an escape from her unhappy life and denied any suggestions that she used the 19-year-old for sexual gratification.
The prosecution argued that the pair’s relationship was based on a false pretense — and therefore her catfishing victim did not give true consent.
Bilham will be sentenced for the one sexual assault count on July 19. She has denied all charges.