Gemma Barker Victim: How Girl Dressed as Boy Fooled Everyone

A teenager who was sexually assaulted by cross-dressing Gemma Barker has given up her anonymity to explain how she was hoodwinked.

Jessica Sayers, now 18, was just 15 when she was tricked into bed with two of Gemma Barker's alter-egos.

Sayers, of Weybridge, Surrey, said: "She was clever, I was naive."

She had no idea that fictional "Luke Jones" and "Connor McCormack" were, in fact, her friend Gemma Barker.

Sayers told The Sun how she fell in love with "Connor" after her relationship with "Luke" broke up after "he" groped her.

She said: "Connor spoke like a softly-spoken British version of Justin Bieber and dressed like a boy wearing Superdry tops and tracksuit bottoms or skinny jeans with Calvin Klein boxer shorts sticking out.

"I never suspected for a moment 'he' was Gemma."

Sayers said she was on the brink of suicide when she found out who her beau really was.

"Nobody knows what it's like to be told the person you love and want to spend the rest of your life with is not real. It's heartbreaking. It's like they have just disappeared," she said.

"I wake up hoping he is going to be real. Gemma ruined my childhood and no little girl should have to go through what I did.

"I know people will be wondering how I didn't realise it was her. But she was so clever about it and I was young and naive. She took everything away from me."

She went on to explain exactly how she fell for the ruse.

"Connor, or Gemma, was baby-faced and had no stubble or sideburns but always wore a beanie hat and a hooded top over it to hide his face.

"I had no reason to suspect it wasn't a boy. When we kissed it was just like a normal kiss. Gemma was very flat-chested so I didn't feel her breasts when we hugged - there was nothing there.

"She wanted to be an actress and she could have won an Oscar for her performance."

Barker, who was two years above her victims at school, grew friendly with Sayers and another girl. They had sleepovers where Gemma would discover what the girls liked in a boy and became what her defence lawyer called "the perfect boy".

The court heard earlier this week that Barker spent hours inventing elaborate back stories, personalities and Facebook accounts for her male aliases.

The first victim, who has remained anonymous, allegedly set her up with the fictional "Luke" after she was dating "Aaron" - another of Barker's alter-egos.

"When I met Luke 'he' was wearing a grey hoodie and a beanie hat and surprisingly had the same deep voice as Aaron, like any normal teenage boy.

"Luke pushed me further than I was ready to go and touched me inappropriately."

Barker subsequently binned her Luke character and invented another, "Connor", so that she could have another shot at a relationship with Sayers.

"Connor got in touch with me on MSN and told me he was a friend of Luke," said Sayers.

They began a relationship in January 2010 and Sayers regarded him as her first love.

"We kissed on our second date but I didn't suspect anything. I never suspected for a moment it was the same person as 'Luke' because their personalities were so different."

She continued: "We met up about once a week for about four months but I got really fed up he wouldn't show me his face."

Barker subsequently invented new characters to convince Sayers to continue to see her as a boy.

"She invented a twin brother for Connor called Andy, another boy called Harry Sinclair and a girl called Jess Balet, and messaged me as them."

Barker was only discovered when she fell asleep as "Connor" and "his" revealing "his" face.

Sayers's first reaction was that "Connor" was "Aaron" and that she had been tricked by another boy.

"I felt sick, I didn't quite know what to do. He did bad things to me that night that led to the sexual assault conviction.

"I didn't report it to the police for three weeks as I was so scared."

It was not until Barker was arrested and strip-searched that the subterfuge was revealed.