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High Court Case Brought Against Dan Wootton Over ‘Catfishing’
The former GB News host failed to overturn an order protecting the anonymity of a man he allegedly catfished into sharing sexual material online. Dan Evans and Tom Latchem report.
A High Court judge refused to overturn an anonymity order in a case brought by an ex-colleague of former GB News presenter Dan Wootton – the first to stem from a Byline Times investigation into his alleged use of fake avatars to trick men into sharing compromising details online.
Judge Roger Eastman ruled in April that there was “clear evidence of potential adverse and serious adverse effect” if the identity of the man – known as ‘YXN’ – was made public.
The hearing was part of a personal injury case alleging Wootton’s use of a fake online identity, ‘Maria Joseph’, to unlawfully obtain intimate photos and an explicit video of the man.
Mr Justice Eastman heard that Wootton sent partially and naked photographs of a woman, as well as a video of a couple having sex, while pretending to be Joseph in Facebook and WhatsApp messages in 2010 to deceive the man into sending private material of his own.
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