Dan Wootton denies catfishing ‘former colleague’ for explicit images

Former GB News presenter Dan Wootton has denied allegations that he catfished another man into sending explicit content.

In April, the High Court heard that in 2009 Wootton allegedly used the name Maria Joseph to pretend to be a woman and shared sexualised messages with a former colleague, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, using email, SMS and Facebook.

The claimant, who claims to have believed he was speaking to a woman and wanted to pursue a sexual relationship with her, says he sent explicit images and a video including footage of him performing a sex act on himself.

The catfishing account is also alleged to have sent the claimant nude videos of a woman, whom he believed to be Maria, engaging in sexual intercourse with another man.

Lawyer Justin Levinson told the court at the time that Wootton “tricked the claimant into providing these images”.

Wootton has denied the claim in documents filed to the court, according to the BBC, saying he never communicated with the man in question “via any medium” or “ever has been in possession” of any “explicit photographs or video” of him.

The claimant says he finally realised he was speaking to Wootton and is taking civil action against him for “damages for personal injuries and losses consequent on the defendant’s intentional infliction of harm, misuse of confidential information, infringement of privacy and deceit”.

He has claimed to have suffered from a major depressive order and use of alcohol.

Wootton has responded by saying he did not accept that the claimant had suffered “any injury as a result of any communication of messages, images, and/or videos between him and ‘Maria Joseph’,” the BBC reported. He denied that he and the man were once colleagues, and said the claim should not be allowed because any case should have been brought years earlier.

Judge Roger Eastman said in April: “The claim relates to what is colloquially referred to as a catfishing exercise, whereby a person alleged to be the defendant (Mr Wootton) impersonated a fictitious person and induced the claimant into engaging in exchanges with that person of a sexualised nature.

“It transpired that the person was, as I say, completely fictitious and the claimant alleges that as a result of that activity he has suffered psychiatric damage.”

The case continues.