A young woman accused of pretending to be a man to sexually assault a teenager admitted she was “caught in a web of lies”.
Georgia Bilham, 21, is charged with 17 sexual offences after allegedly deceiving a 19-year-old woman.
A trial at Chester Crown Court has heard Bilham created a Snapchat account as George Parry, a male drug dealer from Birmingham, and wore a hood while meeting the short-sighted complainant, claiming to be “paranoid” because of an involvement with Albanian gang members.
Bilham was cross-examined by prosecutor Anna Pope and admitted telling lie after lie to her alleged victim.
You were getting a buzz out of deceiving her into believing you were a man. Is that what you were in it for?— Prosecutor Anna Pope
But she maintained throughout that she thought the woman she had sex with believed she was really a woman and not a man.
Ms Pope said: “You knew she was not going to be sexually attracted to you as Georgia Bilham?”
The defendant replied: “I can’t answer that.”
Ms Pope said sex took place based on the complainant believing she was having sex with a man. Bilham said she enjoyed no sexual gratification from the encounters.
And Bilham again said she believed the complainant knew she was a female but Bilham did not want to tell her who she really was.
Ms Pope continued: “Why didn’t you just say you are a female with a different name?”
Bilham replied: “Because I was caught in a web of lies.”
Ms Pope added: “You were getting a buzz out of deceiving her into believing you were a man. Is that what you were in it for?”
“No,” replied Bilham.
Earlier Bilham told the court she had been “a bit of a tomboy” when she was younger and had a difficult relationship with her mother after she split from her father when Bilham was a teenager.
Bilham said she had never wanted to change her gender to a boy but had questioned her own 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.”
She added: “I was not confident in myself. It was a stupid thing to do. It was a way of not being me.”
Ms Pope asked the defendant: “Do you agree part of that ‘not being you’ was you being a girl?”
Bilham replied: “At the time, yeah.”
I think they told her I was female. It was not George, it was Georgia— Georgia Bilham
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 an online “love hate relationship” which became “toxic” at times, the court heard.
After Bilham passed her driving test in April 2021 they agreed to go for a drive together in the countryside, where they were together in her car for five hours.
On another drive on May 11, 2021 Bilham crashed her mother’s car into a hedge and police were called asking for her licence, which had her real name.
Bilham told the jury she believed a police officer called to the scene revealed to the complainant her true identity.
She said: “I think they told her I was female. It was not George, it was Georgia.”
She added: “I believe she knew about my gender the night of the crash.”
Bilham said she stayed overnight at the complainant’s home, sleeping in her bed, but always wearing a tracksuit with a hood-up.
Martine Snowdon, defending, asked Bilham, “You were touching her sexually. Did you think she thought you was a girl or a boy?”
“I thought she knew I was a girl since the crash,” Bilham said.
Bilham, of Bunbury Road, Alpraham, Cheshire, denies nine sexual assaults and eight counts of assault by penetration all between May to August 2021.
The trial was adjourned until Tuesday morning.
