Gemma Barker
Gemma Barker (born 1990) is a British woman convicted of impersonating a series of teenage boys in order to sexually assault two teenage girls.
Biography edit
Barker, born in 1990, lived in West Molesey, Surrey. She befriended two teenage girls living in the same area, Jessica Sayers and one known only as "Alice". Online, she established two false identities, "Luke Jones" and "Aaron Lampard", both of whom were supposedly teenage boys. She used her "Luke" persona to begin a relationship with Jessica and her "Aaron" persona to begin another relationship with Alice, beginning in November 2009. Both of these relationships involved hugging, kissing and sexual touching. When meeting up with the victims Barker wore baggy clothing and lowered her voice in order to appear like a boy.
In a strange twist, Barker also developed a third male persona, a friend of "Luke" named "Conor McCormack". When Jessica began to suspect that "Luke" was cheating on her, Barker used the "Conor" persona to seduce her. Jessica fell for this despite having met "Luke", "Aaron" and the real Barker and the two had more sexual contact. However, afterwards Jessica removed Barker's hat while she was sleeping and realized that "Conor" was also "Aaron", although she still believed that she was a boy. She reported the encounter to Alice, who she told Aaron was cheating on her, and police, who arrested "Aaron" for sexual assault. "Aaron" was strip-searched in custody, revealing that "he" was, in fact, a woman.
After Barker's true identity was exposed, she admitted that she had not only been "Aaron" and "Conor", but also "Luke". She was given psychiatric evaluation which diagnosed her with autism and ADHD, which may have caused or contributed to her deception. Barker pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault and one count of fraud and was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison on 5 March 2012. She has since been released on licence.
References edit
- Court hears of amazing double life of girl, 19, who disguised herself as a boy so she could date girls, The Daily Mail
- "Deceptive and deceitful": Girl, 19, who disguised herself as a boy to trick girls into sex warned she faces jail, The Daily Mirror
- Staines woman dressed as boy jailed for sex assaults, BBC News
- Gemma Barker: The girl who disguised herself as three guys to seduce her female friends, Closer Online
- Boy-girl groper freed early after 15 months as disgusted victim is ‘scared to go out’, The Sun