Woman, 21, tricked teenage girl into sex, court hears

A woman tricked a teenage girl into having sex by hiding her long blonde hair under a hood and pretending to be a boy named George, a jury heard today.

Georgia Bilham, 21, from Cheshire, set up a fake Snapchat profile under the name ‘George Parry’ with a cartoon image of a blond-haired man as her profile picture and began messaging the girl online, it was alleged.

They progressed to rendezvous for sexual activity in “George’s” car, and later at her home, where “he” kept up appearances and tried to allay her mounting suspicions that “he” was really a woman, the court was told.

Each time, “George” asked her to take off her glasses, which meant she couldn’t see his face very well.

The court heard the plaintiff had “very poor” eyesight, with everything more than 5 inches (14 cm) from her face “blurred.” The jury heard it meant she was “essentially blind” if she wasn’t wearing her glasses.

Initially, the defendant took off her glasses, but after a while she took them off herself.

The Crown’s case is that the defendant knew the girl was “blind without her glasses — and so took them off her.”

As “he” regularly engaged in sexual acts with the accuser, he began to shake until she stopped, when she tried to lower “his” Calvin Klein boxers.

“George” told her he was too afraid to take off his top or even pull down the hood because he was involved in an Albanian criminal gang.

They progressed to rendezvous for sexual activity in “George’s” car, and later at her home, where “he” kept up appearances and tried to allay her mounting suspicions that “he” was really a woman, the court was told. In the photo, Georgia Bilham

He also said he was self-conscious because of a stabbing scar, the prosecutor said.

But the accuser – who cannot be named for legal reasons – eventually discovered the truth after researching Bilham online and confronting “George.”

In one message she wrote: “Admit you got caught, I know more than enough now.”

Bilham allegedly deleted the Snapchat account under George’s name before writing back, “I don’t even dress like a boy, it’s just taken over my life.”

After that, the girl contacted the police and Bilham was arrested.

Anna Pope, prosecutor, opened her trial at Chester Crown Court saying the prosecution did not fully consent to sexual activity because she believed “George” was really a man.

Whether Bilham was “attracted” to the alleged victim “or if she somehow became aroused by making another woman believe she was communicating both verbally and physically with a man is not known,” she added .

But she said the “real problem” was whether the complainant “thought when she engaged in sexual activity that she was doing it with a man.”

Georgia Bilham, 21, arrives for trial at Chester Crown Court

Bilham is charged with nine counts of assault and eight counts of penetration, all of which she denies.

Bilham, who arrived at the court wearing a loose-fitting cardigan over a black strappy top, tight black slacks and sneakers and with her long blond hair loose, began messaging her with the Snapchat profile George_132X, the court heard today.

‘George’ told her his parents were dead and he was from Birmingham but lived near Chester and worked for Albanian gangsters, Mrs Pope said.

In 2021, they began meeting on local rail lines where Bilham would “wear boys’ clothes,” Ms Pope said.

“He had a hood pulled over his head.”

She added that this “would be a feature of all their encounters,” with “George” holding “his” hood up so the girl couldn’t see “the true length of Georgia’s hair.”

The girl began to feel ‘attracted’ to ‘George’, who she thought was a young man, Mrs Pope said, and ‘he’ would pick her up in ‘his’ car and take her for a ride.

In addition, the court heard that “George” spoke like a man with a Birmingham accent – and the jurors were told they would hear a voice note Bilham sent her via Snapchat under the guise of his “alter ego” of George.

They first kissed on May 10, 2021, but later that night the car got stuck and ‘George’ started to ‘panic’ when police arrived at the scene and suggested they run, Ms Pope said.

“We say Georgia Bilham was rightly concerned that her true identity would be revealed, because that night it almost was,” she said.

Officers took the defendant to their patrol car to check “his” records, and the girl learned they were using the name “Georgia.”

Afterwards, she “confronted” the defendant and “demands an explanation,” the prosecutor said, asking, “Are you a girl?”

She said that ‘George’ denied it and told her, ‘It’s a bogus permit, because I don’t have one, that’s why I told you to run.’

She gave ‘him’ until the next morning to prove to her that he wasn’t a woman, but ‘George’ couldn’t.

However, ‘he’ sent her a ‘selfie’ which showed a ‘young man with blond hair and no top’, Ms Pope said.

Later, “George” messaged her saying, “On my way back to Brum with Slitta, he picked up pounds and decided to get in on a police chase.”

Ms Pope told the jurors that this ‘with criminal associates, this stopped appearing to be George from Birmingham’.

The defendant also told her that the reason “that” he “always had his hood up” was related to his involvement with the Albanian gang members” and was “paranoid about being followed.”

“We say that despite her initial concerns, she trusted him and believed what he told her about his identity was true,” Ms Pope said.

On a later car ride, they went to Horseshoe Pass, a beauty spot in North Wales, where, after being pulled over, she allowed “George” to perform sexual acts on her, the jurors were told.

“She could tell George was wearing Calvin Klein boxers,” Pope Pope said.

She “tried to take off his undergarments so that she too could touch him sexually,” but when she pulled them “close to the hip,” George stopped, lay on top of her “and began to shake.”

Thinking he was “nervous” and may have been sexually assaulted when “he” was younger, she “didn’t push it.”

The prosecution is that if she had “dropped his sweatpants and boxers, she would have found out that George Parry was, in fact, Georgia Bilham,” Ms. Pope told jurors.

In the following weeks, their intimacy increased, the court heard, but to the girl’s ‘frustration’, the defendant did not want her to perform sexual acts with ‘him’.

Mrs. Pope said: “George often made excuses, for example that he had been stabbed, and because of the scar he felt self-conscious and disliked being touched.”

He started staying at her childhood home, but continued to wear sweatpants and a hooded top, she said.

He was “not as relaxed” as when they were in the car because of the “much greater risk” of someone realizing that “he” was not who “he” claimed to be, she added.

However, her mother became suspicious after meeting ‘George’ and told her she was being cheated on.

Once, after ‘George’ stopped to buy gas and went to pay, the girl – who had remained in the car – found a bank card in Georgia Bilham’s name, the jury was told.

But instead of suspecting that “George was in fact Georgia,” she “confronted him” believing that “he” was seeing someone named Georgia Bilham, Ms. Pope said.

“George” told her he had borrowed Georgia Bilham’s bank card to pay his road tax, the court heard.

The girl even looked up Georgia Bilham’s Facebook profile — revealing her true identity — but kept wondering if “George” was in a relationship with her, the prosecutor said.

Ms Pope said this showed it was ‘very clear’ that at that stage she believed ‘George’ and Bilham were ‘two separate people’.

In August 2021, “George” was staying at her house and woke her up in the night wishing she would “sit on his face,” she said – still wearing his hood.

She agreed, Mrs Pope said – “believing, as she had in every sexual act, that the person who performed oral sex on her was a man called George from Birmingham, not a woman called Georgia from Chester” .

But when they went to a local Starbucks the next day, the girl messaged her mother — who hadn’t yet met “George” properly — asking if she would like them to get her a drink.

She said she did, and on their return the girl told ‘George’ to give it to her mother ‘himself’ as they had not spoken before except ‘Hello’, said Mrs Pope.

After protesting, ‘he’ finally agreed – his hand ‘was shaking so much that she spilled some of the drink when she put it on the table’.

She could see “George” more clearly than her daughter and could perceive the truth, Mrs. Pope said.

Not only did she not believe “George” was the person in the photos her daughter had sent, but she also “didn’t accept at all that ‘George’ was a man,” she added.

After telling her daughter about her suspicions, the girl checked out Georgia Bilham’s Facebook page.

As she asked more questions, she “began to realize that George Parry’s persona was all fake, created by the real George, Georgia Bilham.”

Ms Pope said the prosecution was “clear that she did not consent to sexual activity with a woman”.

“When she agreed to have sexual activity with George Parry it was because George Parry was a man,” she added.

As a result, she finally confronted ‘George’ on August 19 before contacting Bilham’s father and forwarding the messages ‘he’ had sent her.

Bilham was interviewed by police and replied ‘no comment’ to each question.

The jurors were told that Bilham’s defense will likely be that although sexual activity occurred as alleged, the issue for them was to decide whether the girl knew that “George” was really a woman.

The process continues.