A trans woman in the United Kingdom tried to frame their ex-boyfriend by logging onto his Facebook account and contacting the known teenager “decoy” account of a group that seeks out pedophiles.
Amy Gray, 37, used their ex-boyfriend’s Facebook account to contact a “14-year-old girl” Gray knew to be a decoy account created by a vigilante group that confronts pedophiles, the Daily Mail reported. Gray also used the ex-boyfriend’s new partner’s name when communicating with the decoy in order to get them in trouble, too. Gray apparently told police officers that it would be a “bonus” for the new partner to get falsely branded a pedophile as well.
Gray had helped their ex-boyfriend create his Facebook profile, prosecutors said in court. Gray’s ex-boyfriend was already on the sex offender registry, and Gray was convicted three times for sexual assault while living as a man in 2005. Gray started living as a woman a year after those convictions.
Gray set up a time and place for the vigilante group, Predator’s Exposed, to meet with Gray’s ex-boyfriend and new partner. Prosecutor Ben Thomas said in court: “Of course no one turned up to meet them so they went to his house as his address had been given in some of the messages.”
The ex-boyfriend reportedly answered the door as six members of the vigilante group yelled at him, calling him a “dirty, vile piece of s***,” a “jelly bellied b******,” and “Fred West,” a reference to the English serial killer who murdered at least 12 young women.
The group livestreamed the encounter on Facebook, prompting the ex-boyfriend to tell his new girlfriend to ignore calls from her own mother. The Mail reported that Humberside police arrested the couple, detaining them for 12 hours and searching their home and phones. The investigation into the couple stopped when police discovered that Gray’s IP address was the source of the messages. Police determined the ex-boyfriend could not have been at Gray’s house when the messages were sent.
Prosecutor Thomas told the court that Gray said in an interview they “wanted revenge.”
“She knew how much the video would be shared and she wanted him in prison so he and his new partner couldn’t be together,” Thomas said, according to the Mail.
The ex-boyfriend said he and his new girlfriend had to move to another town because even though they were innocent, Gray’s scheme worked. The couple was yelled at in the street and their house was vandalized with graffiti.
Gray was sentenced to five years in prison for the false accusation, but Amber Hobson, who mitigated the case, claimed Gray would have a hard time in prison as a trans woman.
The judge told Gray: “You wanted to make him suffer and cause maximum harm and degradation to his emotional wellbeing, status and reputation.”
“If that caused harm and distress to his girlfriend that was a bonus for you. You exposed them to an ordeal of public humiliation,” the judge added.