Woman who posed as man to kiss short-sighted teenage girl guilty of sexual assault

 • 3h ago

A woman accused of posing as a man to prey on a short-sighted teenage girl has been found guilty of sexual assault by kissing but cleared of 16 other sex offences in a UK court.

Georgia Bilham (21) was cleared by a jury of all but one of the alleged offences after three hours of deliberations following an eight-day trial.

She made no reaction as the verdicts were delivered at Chester Crown Court.

Judge Michael Leeming told Bilham: “You have been convicted of count one, an allegation of sexual assault.

“I’m going to adjourn sentencing for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

“It should not be taken by you as an indication of a non-custodial sentence – all options are open.”

Bilham, from Alpraham, Cheshire, will have to sign the sex offenders register and will be sentenced on July 19.

Her trial was told she created an online Snapchat 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, is severely short-sighted.

“George” claimed to be “paranoid” because of his involvement with Albanian gangsters.

Bilham said that 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 was told.

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 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.

She told the court she had been “a bit of a tomboy” when she was younger and had a difficult relationship with her mother after her parents split when she was a teenager.

Bilham said she never wanted to change gender but questioned her sexuality and that her mother would “not be happy” if she was in a same-sex relationship.

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 denied nine sexual assaults and eight counts of assault by penetration, all between May to August 2021.