Woman who posed as man said it was ‘stupid mistake’, Chester Crown Court told

A woman accused of posing as a man and sexually assaulting a short-sighted teenage girl told her it was a "stupid mistake that shouldn’t have happened", a court has heard.

Georgia Bilham, 21, is charged with 17 sexual offences after allegedly deceiving a 19-year-old woman by pretending to be a man.

She posed online as George Parry, a man from Birmingham, and wore a hood while meeting her victim, claiming to be 'paranoid' because of an involvement with Albanian gang members.

The complainant - who cannot be named for legal reasons - was alerted to Bilham's true identity by her mum and confronted her in August 2021, Chester Crown Court was told.

In a message read to the jury, Bilham told her: “I never meant for it to get this far. I’m so sorry for all of it.

“It was never me and it shouldn’t have happened.”

She told her alleged victim she hated herself for what she had done and had wanted to end it but “didn’t know how”.

She added: “I didn’t even dress like a lad, it just took over my life.

“It was a stupid, stupid, stupid mistake that shouldn’t have happened.”

Giving evidence, the complainant’s mother said her daughter had told her about seeing someone called George, who she said had social anxiety so kept his hood up.

She said her daughter seemed “really happy” in the relationship and had a “spark in her eye”.

The mother told the court: “I asked her if she was doing sexual things with George and she said yeah.

“I said ‘with his hood up?’ And she said ‘yeah’ and I thought ‘bit strange’.”

The court heard following a car crash in May 2021 the complainant overheard Bilham give her details to police.

PC Dave Fallows told the court the woman, in the passenger seat of Bilham’s car when it collided with a hedge in the early hours of 11 May, said she “felt sick” after she discovered the person she was with was female.

He said: “She believed that it was a male she’d been talking to over the internet and that they weren’t going to have any further contact.”

But, the court was told Bilham claimed she had been using a fake licence so the complainant continued to see her.

She sent a screenshot of messages with someone she said was part of an Albanian gang and claimed she had been collected from the scene by one of the Albanians, although the court heard Bilham was picked up by her father.

The complainant’s mother said: “When (my daughter) came home from the crash I thought there’s no way somebody has got away with a girl’s ID, there’s not a chance.

"But when she showed me the screenshot, she was telling me what George was telling her and that he was going to send away for his passport and all these things, it made me believe it was true."

She said “George” had stayed at their house on four occasions but she only met him once, although she knew he had stayed because the toilet seat had been left up.

Bilham, of Bunbury Road, Alpraham, Cheshire, denies nine sexual assaults and eight counts of assault by penetration.

The trial continues.