Woman,21,abusedgirls posingasteenageboy

Pervert preyed on ‘sexually naive’ young victims

A WOMAN who posed as a boy to sexually abuse teenage girls she groomed online has been jailed for eight years.

Gemma Watts, 21, travelled the UK in disguise to meet victims aged between 13 and 16, who believed she was their boyfriend and close to their own age.

Watts was sentenced at Winchester crown court on Friday after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting four girls.

But detectives believe there could be up to 50 victims and have appealed for anyone with information to come forward.

Judge Susan Evans QC, sentencing Watts, told her: “There was, it seems to me, planning and in some way predatory behaviour. Their age, as you plainly knew, made it more likely they would be sexually naive.

“You groomed each of them with telephone and internet contact to deceive each of them as to your identity.”

She added that Watts caused “severe psychological harm” but accepted that her low IQ, guilty plea, lack of any previous convictions and relatively young age served as some mitigation.

Watts would hide her long hair under a baseball cap and wear jogging bottoms and a hoodie in disguise as “Jake Waton”, 16.

One of her teenage victims, in an impact statement read to the court, said that her “heart exploded” when police revealed Watts’ true identity to her.

Unemployed Watts, of Enfield, North London, pleaded guilty in November to seven sexual assault and grooming charges.

The charges relate to four girls – a 13-year-old from Hampshire; two 14-year-olds from Surrey and Plymouth and a 16-year-old from the West Midlands.