Woman 'duped into sexual relationship with male Army surgeon who she later realised was in fact female' denies going along with 'role play'
Published: | Updated:
A woman allegedly duped into a sexual relationship with a 'male Army surgeon' who she later discovered was in fact female today denied going along with 'role play'.
Blade Silvano, 44, met the woman on dating website Plenty of Fish while falsely claiming to be a man called 'Hunter', a jury has heard.
They began meeting up for sex, but 'Hunter' would allegedly not allow her to see 'him' naked and insisted on the lights being switched off or kept low.
'Hunter' allegedly wouldn't let her touch 'his' groin during their relationship, claiming it was 'sensitive'.
It was only after a 'bombshell' revelation when she was contacted by her lover's 'wife' that she discovered 'Hunter' was actually a woman, Caernarfon Crown Court has heard.
Today the alleged victim insisted that until that point it had never occurred to her that 'Hunter' was posing as a man.
The court heard sexual messages, videos and voice notes exchanged between the woman and Silvano, who allegedly claimed to be an Army surgeon and was referred to by her as a 'sexy doctor'.
In one, Silvano allegedly claimed to have a 'high sperm count'.
Blade Silvano, 44, pictured ahead of an earlier court hearing, is accused of posing as a man called Hunter and starting an intimate relationship in a 'cruel con' against a female victim
Another referenced a Pussycat Dolls hit, stating: 'Don't cha wish your boyfriend was as hot as me, don't you?'
Giving evidence from behind a screen, the woman said she would not have engaged with the 'Hunter's' profile had she suspected 'he' was female.
Questioned by defence barrister James McCrindell, she denied that it would have been 'obvious to you that Hunter had breasts' despite 'him' allegedly not stripping off.
Asked whether messages involved 'role play', she answered: 'There's no role play going on. I believed I was in a relationship with a straight, heterosexual man.
'I would never go out with a woman.'
Silvano, 44, of no fixed address, denies six counts of sexual assault by penetration between November 2022 and the following June.
Opening the case on Monday, prosecuting counsel Philip Clemo told jurors that throughout the relationship, Silvano falsely 'held herself out to be a biological man, a person with a penis'.
There had been a 'concerted, detailed and entirely deliberate con perpetrated by this defendant over a number of months', he added.
The alleged victim told police during video interviews that she 'felt sick' when she learned Silvano was a woman, saying: 'I thought it was some sort of joke.'
But Silvano maintained to police that the alleged victim knew she was a woman.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.