'I felt repulsed and dirty and wanted to kill myself': Schoolgirl victims of teenage girl who dressed as boy to date them speak of their anguish as she is jailed

Gemma Barker used fake profiles on Facebook to lure girls, 15 and 16

• She wore baggy clothes and hats to hide identity during rendezvous
• Relationships included 'kissing, cuddling and sexual touching',
• She wanted to become 'the perfect boy' for each of the victims, court hears
• Victims reveal their pain in court at 'being told the person you love and want to spend the rest of your life with is not real'
• Barker jailed for 30 months for sexual assaults, three months for fraud

By Matt Blake

Double life: Gemma Barker showed up to the illicit rendezvous wearing baggy clothes and hats to hide her true identity

The schoolgirl victims of a teenage girl who dressed as a boy to date them told of their pain yesterday as their deceiver was jailed for two-and-a-half years.
The pair, aged 15 and 16, believed they had found the perfect boyfriends in Connor McCormack and Aaron Lampard - who they believed were their age.
But their worlds collapsed when they realised that Connor and Aaron were not only the same person, but were in fact their friend Gemma Barker.
Guildford Crown Court heard how Barker, 20, duped the girls, their parents and police by wearing baggy clothes, hats and speaking in a deeper voice.
Even when one of her alter egos was arrested, it wasn't until police gave her a male strip search that they realised 'he' was in fact a girl.
'Nobody understands what it’s like to be told that the person you love and want to spend the rest of your life with is not real,' said one in a victim's impact statement read at Guildford Crown Court before sentencing.
'I just want to stop hurting. What did I ever do wrong to you? I felt repulsive and dirty, it made me angry, I wanted to kill myself, because I couldn’t cope.'
Aaron and Connor were born in 2009 when Barker created fake Facebook profiles with which to lure her teenage friends on dates.
With the rendezvous secured, she showed up wearing baggy clothes and hats to hide her true identity, Guildford Crown Court heard. Barker, dressed as Aaron, even accompanied one of the girls to her family home and met her parents, who knew Barker as a girl.
Her alter-egos became so complex that she even concocted elaborate back stories for them, telling one of her victims that Aaron had lost his mother to a car accident and two brothers, one to leukaemia and the other in a drowning accident.

 

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The court heard how Barker had 'groomed' the girls by pretending to be painfully shy, even restricting communication to text messages when with one of them.
That played upon the victim’s own shyness and was compounded by the alleged boy, Luke Jones, claiming to have bone cancer, the court heard.

Deceit: Miss Barker with Hollyoaks star Kieron Richardson. The court heard how she suffers from autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, commonly known as ADHD

Even when one of her alter-egos dumped one of the girls, she created another one, who consoled her and exploited her vulnerability.
Judge Peter Moss said Barker had played with their minds and physically with their bodies, describing what she did as 'sucking on their emotions'.
Her cover was only blown when one of the girls removed Aaron's hat while asleep and realised he and Connor, whom her friend was dating, were the same person. Even then she didn't recognise he was also her friend Gemma.
After Aaron's alleged infidelity, the girls discussed the situation and contacted police.
Officers went to her friend’s home when 'Aaron' was expected and questioned 'him', but he became aggressive and said he had been in a car crash and was in hospital in Kingston-upon-Thames at the time he was accused of being exposed in the girl’s bedroom.
When it emerged there was no evidence of that, 'he' telephoned detectives to say Gemma Barker could provide him with an alibi. The same officer also received an email from 'Luke Jones' confessing to sexually assaulting the younger girl.
When the net was closing in, Barker deliberately fractured her jaw and tried to blame another alter-ego, 'Luke Jones', for attacking her and forcing her to pose as 'Aaron', the court heard.

Jailed: Barker pictured outside her home in Staines, West London. She received 30-month terms for the sexual assaults and three months for the fraud, the sentences to be concurrent

'On June 9, 2010, the officers arrested who they thought was Aaron Lampard,' said prosecutor Ruby Selva.
'He was patted down and searched by officers and taken into custody as a male but it was only as clothes were taken in the custody suite that it became apparent that it was a female - and this defendant.'

Barker, now 20, of Staines, Middlesex, was told by Judge Moss that she would be in custody for the first half of the term and serve the remainder on licence.
The judge said Barker had admitted that the relationships included kissing, cuddling and sexual touching, adding: 'Nothing that you have ever said to any expert or the police sheds any light on, or provides any understanding of, your motivation for these offences.
'Nor have I nor anyone else seen any flicker of remorse for what you have done.'
Barker showed no emotion as she left the dock to start her sentence, to be served at least initially in a young offenders' institution.
She had previously admitted two counts of sexual assault and one of fraud. The offences took place between November 23 2009 and May 10 2010.
She received 30-month terms for the sexual assaults and three months for the fraud, the sentences to be concurrent.
The judge said Barker's guilty pleas were 'a complete reversal of the position you had held up until then', having previously used 'persistent lies and denials'.

Before sentencing: Gemma Barker, pictured with her mother as they left home in Staines for the sentencing hearing

Referring to her first victim, the judge said: 'You, as Aaron, played upon her and her parents' vulnerability, by pouring out to them a saga of lies, including that Aaron’s mother had been killed in a road traffic accident in America, that his brother had died of leukaemia and that another brother had drowned.'
He said it was important to stress that Barker’s deliberate deceitfulness and her disguise were so convincing they fooled not only the victims but their families and friends and also experienced police officers.
'Your cunning and deceptiveness were entirely responsible for the victims being so utterly and cruelly tricked.
'They have nothing for which to reproach themselves.'
She had committed repeated sexual assaults - up to 20 on one girl, by pretending to be a boy, and perhaps half that number on the other girl, using two more male disguises.
The fraud count related to her having tried to get compensation for having been assaulted and seriously injured by one of her fictitious characters, Luke Jones.
During the hearing, Barker's barrister, Chetna Patel, referred to probation and psychological reports which found she suffers from autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, commonly known as ADHD.
'Miss Barker struggles to understand the motives and the intentions of others,' she said, telling the court that her client wanted to become 'the perfect boy' for each of the victims.
The judge told Barker: 'Your deceptions were entirely responsible for the victims being so utterly and cruelly tricked, they have nothing with which to reproach themselves.'

Even experienced police officers who became involved in the case were deceived by her disguise at first, he said.

He added: 'The psychological damage to these innocent young women is self-evident.'

'You have adversely touched their lives,' the judge told Barker.