Category: Press

A little selection of the articles from the press and campaign issues.

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Catfish conviction, this time a women.

This catfish (Adele Rennie), a woman posing as a man this time, groomed, exploited and abused several women targets over a period of 4 years. She used Facebook as well as dating platforms to lure her victims into false relationships, gaining trust and empathy (the family member dying of cancer), to finally exploit the targets for sex chat and sexual images. Posing sometimes as a Dr David Crolla, Dr David Graham or Matthew Mancini, she left her victims feeling anxious and humiliated.

Read the story here

It seems the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and our Catfishes employer should look to the NHS directors here for advice and training in how to deal with employees like this:

Professor Hazel Boreland, nurse director at NHS Ayrshire & Arran, said: “We were alerted to serious misconduct issues, immediately suspended the individual and conducted a full investigation.

“This individual never returned to NHS Ayrshire & Arran following suspension and we reported our concerns both to Police Scotland and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.”

This article shows her conviction. Judge jailed Rennie for 22 months, made her the subject of a five-year non-harassment order and placed her on the sex -offenders register for 10 years.

Read the conviction/sentencing here

Our catfish displayed this behaviour too. He even went as far as coming off line, pursuing these relationships in full. By that I mean he abused and exploited us for sex in person. But our catfish has walked away unscathed-is this because this type of behaviour from a man is seen historically as acceptable? Just a CAD having a bit of fun? Not to us it wasn’t.

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Catfish Conviction for fraud-but why does money hold more weight for conviction than abusing someone for sex?

Catfisher sentenced to five months in custody.

This is an amazing step forward for the current legislation being used for Catfish. I was told by Kent police that  mine couldn’t be convicted for Fraud due to him ‘not asking for a sum of money’, yet he gained personally through gifts, use of my house like a hotel including meals and other things bought through talk of being together in a longterm relationship.

But the biggest thing for me was that he used me for sex on top of all this. He used all of us under the pretence of the lies he told, of long term relationships and marriage.

When does money become more important than using someone’s body?

Do we consider that a person who asks for £10 pretending to be homeless to deceive the owner of their money a worse offender than a person who is premeditated and intentional in their plans to misrepresent themselves and their life, including their marital status, to purposefully use women for sex?

Is this not coward’s rape? Are they not similar in their intentions of your typical rapist, in that they want and need to have control and get satisfaction from gaining sex from multiple women/men?

One to think about…

Here’s the CPS article on the Fraud conviction for this Catfish that got Caught!

31/08/2017

Robert Brown, 29, from Portsmouth was sentenced on August, 31, 2017 to five months in custody today at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to six offences of fraud by false representation after he lured two men into giving him money after creating false accounts on social media, a practice referred to as ‘catfishing’.

Senior Crown Prosecutor, Nick Hoyle for the Crown Prosecution Service in Wessex said: “Robert Brown is a liar who put together a scam where he lured two men into giving him money by creating fake profiles on dating websites.

“He targeted the first victim by posing as a young woman called Fran via a dating website and then chatted to her on Whatsapp. One of his first messages was ‘see I am real’ then he sent photos of her face and in a state of undress. ‘Fran’ aka Robert Brown said that she would send more if the victim would pay her money. He then pretended the money had not gone through. In total the victim sent £600.

“Not only did he defraud the victims of their money but he also gloated to them at the end of his scam. Over a 24 hour period he defrauded the first victim, a 27 year old man, of £600 and at the end of his scam he sent a voice message to the victim saying: ‘Thanks for the money mate …Hahaha Gutted’.

“After luring the second victim, a 29-year-old man, into giving him more than £1000, he laughed at him sending the following message saying ‘Hahaha, I know you sad xxx thanks its (sic) Dean haha’’.

“Both victims said in their victim personal statements that they have been left distressed, depressed by what happened to them, and that they find it difficult to trust anyone. One of them is also struggling to recover from their debts due to the fraud.

“We hope that this prosecution will bring them some comfort that justice has been done.”

Notes to editors

The second victim, a 29-year-old man contacted him via another dating website. Robert Brown used the same modus operandi and this time created a fake profile under the name of ‘Sammieandi’. Robert Brown, pretended to be a woman who had no money to pay her rent. The victim who described himself as being vulnerable and gullible as he was going through a difficult time sent the money. Robert Brown/Sammieandi said that she was going to lose her house and needed £200. Each time the victim sent money, the defendant said that the money had not arrived and asked for the money to be sent again. Sammieandi was also offering sex in exchange of the money. He then created other profiles making up more stories as a result the victim gave him a total of £1860.

Read the article online here

Also..

Woman who posed as man to dupe friend into sex, jailed. 

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What a surprise!

The second part of my story started with the need to make something positive out of such a horrid situation.

The main motivation, after being told that nothing could be done to prosecute this man, was to try and ensure that this didn’t happen to other people. I had been through hell and back emotionally and the risks he had put my health at through his deception were horrifying.

It was now that I decided to attempt to get the law changed. I had been asked to think about doing some press before this (as my ‘Catfish’ had such a prominent job) but I didn’t want to. However, thoughts turning to starting a petition meant that the press was a great way to kick start that and make it public. Telling my story was a way to promote the petition.

It all started in my local paper… Kent Messenger and the journalist Alex Claridge.

So on the 23rd February 2017, KM printed my story in their local papers and online. I also did a video for them outlining my goals and aims with the petition and why I was so passionate about seeing this through.

By that evening, my story was in every National Newspaper, including ‘The Guardian’, the ‘The Times’ and BBC news.

Someones clever little software programme told me that by May, my story had been published in various forms over 750 times globally. I could never have imagined my story, could get shared so far, but it did and what a journey it started.