Dan Wootton Paid Porn Stars with Sun’s Depp Money
for Covert Catfish Sex Videos
In the fourth part of its three-year special
investigation, Byline Times reveals how the GB News presenter and MailOnline
columnist used News UK cash to pay male adult actors to secretly film
themselves having sex with men he had targeted on Facebook
Dan Evans
and Tom Latchem
26 July
2023
GB News
presenter Dan Wootton paid adult film stars to meet gay men he had catfished in
order to secretly record them having sex, Byline Times can reveal.
Wootton
‘rented’ the Facebook profiles of at least three different male porn performers
for up to £500 a time, before posing as them and tricking his targets into
meetings to be covertly filmed with cameras he supplied.
At least
one of these meetings took place in a hotel paid for by Rupert Murdoch’s The
Sun newspaper – of which Wootton was associate editor at the time.
The
journalist also charged a £1,500 porn star’s fee for the ‘private work’ to his
then employers News UK – disguised as payment to a ‘contact’ for a front-page
story about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.
This
newspaper has interviewed two of the adult performers involved and has evidence
from another man also paid by Wootton to make secret sex tapes for him.
Byline
Times has also identified two of the victims of Wootton’s catfishing
conspiracy, which is separate to his use of the pseudonyms ‘Martin Branning’
and ‘Maria Joseph’, to trick scores of other male victims into revealing
compromising sexual material.
For legal
reasons, we are not naming the others involved.
However, it
can be confirmed that two have given information to the police about their
experiences with Wootton between 2009 and 2016 – during which time he worked
successively for the now-defunct News of the World, the Daily Mail and The Sun.
‘Are You
Interested in Coming Down and Filming It?’
In this
fourth part of a special three-year investigation into Dan Wootton’s personal
and professional conduct, the male porn stars have revealed how the presenter
paid to use their Facebook profiles to target men of interest.
One told
this newspaper: “Dan used to pay us anywhere between £300 and £500 to use our
Facebooks. I didn’t know these people he was messaging. It was all males. He
was messaging [as] ‘me’ basically.”
He added:
“I know he was using the Facebook of two other [adult entertainers]. I was
watching the messages on [one of the adult entertainer’s accounts] to this
other lad, but he [Wootton] was deleting them – as they were firing out and
coming back, he was deleting them as they were going [along].”
Asked if
Wootton was destroying evidence on a rolling basis as it came up, the
entertainer said: “Yes… Dan was doing it.”
The other
adult entertainer said he allowed Wootton to use his Facebook profile because
he needed the “easy money” and described seeing the now GB News star targeting
“five or six” men from one account.
He said:
“He paid me to use my Facebook account. I still had access to it as well but I
gave him my password. And then when I felt he’d had enough [time], I’d change
my password.”
“After a
while, Dan would message me,” he added. “[Wootton would say] ‘I’ve got a guy
here. Are you interested in coming down and filming it?’”
The first
entertainer continued: “So, he was literally paying people to use their
Facebooks [accounts] and film people [having sex]. These people we used to
meet, I don’t know who they were. I think they were from Dan’s circle, and [the
films] were [an attempt] to get one-up [on them].
“I can’t
say for certain but I think it was to get [compromising material] on people…
That is my belief. Why else would you want someone filmed without their
knowledge and be so adamant you want it filmed?”
‘He Wanted
It Filmed Secretly’
In 2016,
Wootton told the two porn actors, then aged in their mid-20s, to meet him
outside The Sun’s offices in London Bridge and issued them with details of a
target, filming equipment, and directorial instructions.
The first
porn actor said: “There were two cameras and an iPad we had to pick up from Dan
from The [Baby] Shard.” He noticed that the iPad was logged into Wootton’s
Apple iCloud via his Apple ID.
“This was
in 2016,” he continued. “I was in the back of the car when Dan got into it. The
guy ‘we’ were messaging [the target] – you could tell [from the content of the
messages] didn’t want it filmed.
“But Dan’s
like ‘I don’t care what he says, you get in there and get the film. Before you
even go into the house get the cameras on – I want the walk-in’.”
The actor
told Wootton “you can’t f*****g do that Dan” and says the presenter responded
by saying “don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine”.
The first
actor was reluctant to carry on without the target’s permission. “So I said to
[the second actor] ‘no, we’re not doing that. We’re not f*****g filming someone
without their consent. We’re not doing it’.”
When they
approached their target, he was sceptical. “We knocked on his door, introduced
ourselves, and he was like ‘I don’t believe you – two porn stars want to come
down and film me?’
“And I was
like ‘yeah, it’s what we do. Basically, it’s for personal use. This is what me
and my mate do, we go around f*****g people for a laugh.
“The guy
could tell [something was amiss]. He weren’t buying the story. After about
10-15 minutes’ free-play [lighter sexual activity]… I advised him that the
camera was going to come out. He was like ‘no, no, no, I don’t want it filmed,
I don’t want it filmed!’
“I was like
‘okay, well, that’s kind of it then’. We didn’t get anything on film. So, we
took Dan’s cameras back and he said ‘you boys head back to [their home
location] and I’ll sort your money out’.”
The second
actor told of another occasion on which Wootton instructed him and a different
well-known male porn star to target a man he had catfished into a meeting in a
hotel very close to Wootton’s then home in east London.
The
entertainer said: “We went to Dan’s flat in London. He was asking us to film
another chap, and he wanted it secret… he wanted it filmed secretly.”
Explaining
that the target agreed to having the film made on the proviso it was for the
private use of consenting parties, he added: “So we filmed that and gave it to
Dan. Dan was happy with it and he paid us. I think it was £500 each. I can’t
remember if it was paid in cash or by bank transfer.”
Payments
with The Sun’s Money
Wootton
always booked the hotels where some of the meetings took place. Among these
occasions was one on June 12 2016, at the Holiday Inn off London’s Commercial
Road – close to Wootton’s flat at the time.
And on at
least one of the occasions Wootton paid the adult entertainer’s fee with The
Sun’s money.
On 10 June
2016, Wootton sent an email from his work address – dan.wootton@the-sun.co.uk –
to the newspaper’s editorial clerk, registering the porn star as a “new payee”
on its contributor payments system.
The email,
which Byline Times has obtained, reads: “I need [the second entertainer] set up
as a new payee please. He needs to put down for 1500 urgently on the Amber
Heard splash [page one story, also on pages] 4/5 from last week. Thanks, Dan.”
Analysis of
The Sun’s stories in the relevant time-frame suggests that the payment – which
the entertainer confirms was not for information about Johnny Depp or Amber
Heard – was in lieu of an article Wootton wrote about the Hollywood pair’s
private lives.
This
newspaper has also spoken to another man Wootton paid to make a secret film of
an unwitting third party in 2012, this time at London’s Savoy hotel in a suite
paid for by the then sponsors of the BAFTAs, the telecoms company Orange.
The man
said he had initially dealt with Wootton’s alter ego Martin Branning and had
made secret films for Branning for £250 a time, before being approached openly
by Wootton and asked to meet another man whom he covertly filmed without
consent.
He said:
“It was on a Sunday, during the BAFTAs, while Dan was still at The Sun. I got a
message from Wootton himself. He asked me to secretly record me [performing a
specified sex act on a man who did not know he was being filmed] at a hotel
room at The Savoy for money.”
Although the
filming went ahead, in the event there was no sexual activity, as the pair
instead got drunk on the room’s mini-bar.
The man
said: “I was secretly recording, correct, but I didn’t [perform any sex acts],
and we just drank in the hotel room… what [Wootton] asked me to do didn’t
really happen, but he still asked me to video [the man] without his consent.”
The
allegations in this article have been put to representatives of Dan Wootton and
this newspaper has not received a response. Byline Times will update this
article if it does.
While we
have repeatedly asked representatives for Wootton to confirm or deny whether
the presenter was, or is connected to, the online identity ‘Martin Branning’,
it has not received a response. Wootton has said he denies any allegations of
criminality.
News UK,
publisher of The Sun, also did not respond to Byline Times’ questions. It has
appointed legal firm Kingsley Napley to investigate the allegations made
against Wootton.
Wootton’s
current employers – MailOnline and GB News – have still not responded to any
questions by this newspaper about the allegations. While Wootton’s twice-weekly
MailOnline column has not appeared since Byline Times’ investigation was
published, he is still appearing on GB News’ Dan Wootton Tonight.
Conservative
MP Dame Caroline Dinenage, chair of the House of Commons’ Digital, Culture,
Media and Sport Committee, has written to Victoria Newton, editor of The Sun,
so it can “set out what investigations are taking place” into its former
employee Wootton.
Dan Evans
and Tom Latchem are former colleagues of Dan Wootton’s from the News of the
World. None of the sources in this investigation were paid for their testimony
Do you have
any information for our investigation?
Contact
Byline Times confidentially by emailing news@bylinetimes.com
WRITTEN BY
Dan Evans
and Tom Latchem
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