Female pub owner who tricked the woman she met on Plenty of Fish into having sex with her by pretending to be a man during a 'two-year relationship' is jailed for more than 10 years

A woman who seduced another woman into a two-year sexual relationship by pretending to be a man was jailed for more than ten years today.

Blade Silvano, 41, created a fake dating profile on Plenty of Fish in 2016 and carried out a “gentle deception” to convince her victim she was a man.

She hid her lower body with a large T-shirt, had sex with a strap-on device and sent photos of herself wet shaving. The couple was only intimate in the dark.

Silvano – who used a fake surname and claimed to be an army officer – and her unsuspecting victim met only a few times, but messaged and 'sexted' each other every day for almost two years. They had even started planning a wedding.

The victim, who lives in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, but cannot be identified for legal reasons, only discovered her lover's true gender by chance on Facebook.

Jailing Silvano for 10 years and six months yesterday, Judge Philip Gray said: 'You have carefully managed your appearance to look like a man.

“You deliberately wanted to mislead her (and) you did so in the most despicable way.

'She was convinced she was having sex with a man. You achieved this through a series of careful deceptions. Her consent is null and void.”

The defendant, from Bishop's Castle, Shropshire, was found guilty of two counts of assault by penetration after a trial that ended in May.

During the hearing at Cambridge Crown Court, the jury heard how the couple first met and kissed before having 'sexual intercourse' in December 2016.

The victim, who referred to Silvano as a “he” in her testimony, said she thought she was having sex with a man named Blade Mendez — and had never consented to intimacy with a woman.

Silvano's victim said afterwards that she was “happy” with the sentence, but added that she felt it was “doubtful” that she had learned her lesson.

She added: 'When we had sex, Blade would usually blindfold me and never let me look at the penetration…

'He used sex toys on me; the other way around was not allowed. He told me he was a man and on that basis I agreed to have sex with him.”

Silvano denied ever meeting the woman and said they had an “online relationship” that involved only “role play” and “fantasy.”

She said the thousands of messages between them were all part of the fantasy, as was the planned wedding, for which a registrar was booked and Silvano went wedding dress shopping with her sister.

In evidence, Silvano claimed that she was “open” about her gender from the beginning and that, although medically a “female” on her birth certificate, she did not define herself in this way.

She told the jury she was 'pansexual' and often used the title 'Doctor', which she felt she was entitled to after completing an online PhD in ancient Greek history.

But her claim that she had written a two-hundred-word dissertation on the subject was ridiculed in court.

The Mail's investigation revealed that the tall tales started years earlier, when Silvano ran a cafe in a former Victorian town hall in Welshpool, Powys, where fellow traders knew her as a man.

An article in the Market Times described how 'he' claimed to have been an orthopedic surgeon for the RAF, 'a career cut short by the combination of a road accident in which he lost a foot after a joyrider collided with his motorbike, and a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis'.

Referring to her use of male pronouns, a former colleague previously said: “He betrayed our trust and friendship. The lies are hurtful and disturbing because we treated him like a friend.”

Silvano also said she gained a National Diploma in Applied Science and a BTEC in Animal Behavior from the University of Liverpool. Neither institution has a record of a student with either of the names she went by.

The Royal Military Police also investigated her for the prosecution and told the trial that she had not served in the army.

Silvano was also accused of masterminding a battle against cancer. During the trial she said she had been tested for the disease but accepted she had never been diagnosed.

She claims that contact was broken when the victim discovered via Facebook in 2018 that she already had another serious relationship and wanted to report her to the police out of revenge.

Judge Gray added that the case was not about gender dysphoria, but about the use of “deception and lies” to achieve sexual gratification.

He described Silvano's actions as “calculated” and said: “You continued to string her along and that was unspeakably cruel.” You lied all the time.”

Detective Inspector Leeza Phillips, who led the police investigation, said it was “unlike any case” she had seen before.

She added: Silvano committed the ultimate deception and caused her victim extreme suffering.

'Without the full facts, the victim could not consent to a sexual relationship and this whole situation leaves her feeling violated and traumatised.

'I hope that the victim and her family can now find some closure from this traumatic period.'

Silvano was placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.