David Orton / Danielle Rose Gemini
David Orton (aka Danielle Rose Gemini), a violent male who identifies/identified as a transgender woman was convicted at Leicester Crown Court of two counts of penetrative sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 15. Orton, 25, was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison in November 2022.
The Daily Mail reports that a source familiar with the case said the sex offender used their status as a transgender woman to get close to the victim, and in the process groomed both her and her parents. Subsequently, the girl’s parents became concerned about their daughter’s relationship with her supposed friend and reported Orton to the police in October 2020. The girl had been so successfully groomed that she initially didn’t recognise that what had happened to her was abuse and subsequently became pregnant. In 2021, Orton was charged with four counts of sexual activity (penetrative) with a girl aged 13 to 15 and two counts of rape of a girl aged 13 to 15 – the jury returned not guilty verdicts on the rape charges.
At the sentencing hearing Judge Timothy Spencer KC told Orton: ‘You are a self-pitying and self-obsessed individual who shows no detectable empathy and not a shred of remorse for your actions. ‘Those actions have destroyed a mother and daughter relationship at a time when they should have been close, caused devastation to the wider family and taken away the teenaged years of a child that can never be re-lived.’
Detective Constable Sarah Le Boutillier said: “Orton used the victim’s vulnerability for their own gain and not only groomed the victim, but also her parents who believed Orton was a genuine friend. “Throughout our interviews, Orton refused to accept that there was any wrong doing and that they were in fact the victim. The claims were unfounded.
Orton – who apparently identified as a transgender woman at the time of the offending – was referred to in court and in the police statement with male pronouns and has been sent to a male prison.
Standing For Women founder Kellie-Jay Keen said: ‘We know that predatory men will use any tool at their disposal to access victims. ‘It’s extraordinary naive to think they might not pretend to be women to give them unfettered access to children. ‘Safeguarding must not ever bend to the whims of ideology, religions or cultural trends.
Photo via Leicestershire Police
Media reports
BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-63785679 archive
Daily Mail https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11482001/Transgender-paedophile-25-identified-woman-groom-14-year-old-girl-got-pregnant.html archive
Leicestershire Police statement https://www.leics.police.uk/news/leicestershire/news/2022/november/prison-sentence-for-a-man-who-groomed-and-sexually-abused-a-teenage-girl/ archive