GB News Star Dan Wootton Unmasked in
Cash-for-Sexual Images Catfishing Scandal
In the first part of its three-year special
investigation, Byline Times reveals the accounts of victims targeted by the
powerful TV presenter
Dan Evans
and Tom Latchem
17 July
2023
GB News
presenter and MailOnline columnist Dan Wootton hid behind fake online
identities to trick and bribe scores of men into revealing compromising sexual
material, Byline Times can reveal in the first part of a three-year special
investigation.
The
40-year-old broadcaster and self-styled voice against ‘woke’ culture – whose
show Dan Wootton Tonight is the biggest ratings winner on the UK’s fourth-most
watched news channel – targeted journalistic colleagues, friends and members of
the public for at least 10 years.
Byline
Times has extensive evidence to show that, between June 2008 and 2018, Wootton
– who is gay – posed as a fictitious showbusiness agent called “Martin
Branning” to offer sums of up to £30,000 “tax free” to his targets, many of
whom were heterosexual men.
Among them
are a very senior executive at Rupert Murdoch’s News UK alongside at least six
other staff at The Sun newspaper – one with close links to News UK CEO Rebekah
Brooks – friends, Facebook associates and users of the dating apps Grindr and
Gaydar.
Two of the
targets made criminal complaints to Scotland Yard without knowing the real
identity of their tormentor with detectives aware of the activities of Branning
– whose name is a portmanteau of EastEnders characters Martin Fowler and Max
Branning – since 2019.
Our
journalists handed a 28-page dossier of evidence to the Metropolitan Police for
investigation on 20 June 2023, however last week criminal claims started to
emerge on social media, with the posts rapidly attracting more than 18 million
views, causing Wootton to trend on Twitter for several days.
As a
result, this newspaper is today publishing some details of our findings. We
have identified five co-conspirators, along with a representative group of
around a dozen victims. However sources suggest the true figure extends to
many, many more men.
Byline
Times knows the names of those involved but, in order to protect the victims
and the course of justice, it will not be revealing them publicly.
Wootton has
been off-air at GB News, on which he hosts a week-nightly show, for two weeks
taking leave to visit his family, who live near Wellington in his native New
Zealand. He has been silent in the face of mass Twitter accusations except to
retweet promotions of his broadcasting return due at 9pm tonight.
In his
absence, the news channel has covered the money-for-sexual-images controversy
surrounding the BBC and its lead presenter Huw Edwards, describing the story as
a “nuclear bomb”.
Stand-in
Mark Dolan told viewers on Dan Wootton Tonight: “It’s a bad day for Huw
Edwards, as he battles for his health, and the future, of his career. But for
the BBC, it’s even worse.” Dolan added on 14 July that “this Huw Edwards story
is not going anywhere”.
This is the
start of a wider report into the toxic culture of the national media. We want
to keep telling the story. Contributions to our #MediaToo crowdfunder will go
directly to funding our journalism.
Contribute to our #MediaToo crowdfunder
At the time
of Dolan’s most recent comment, Byline Times investigators had already informed
executives at GB News of the scope and veracity of allegations against Wootton,
but the channel has continued to heavily promote Wootton’s programme.
During the
established period of his activities, Wootton was initially an influential
editor for Murdoch’s News of the World before moving, once that paper closed in
2011 after the phone-hacking scandal, to the Daily Mail and then, from 2013, to
Britain’s biggest-selling tabloid The Sun, at which he edited its ‘Bizarre’ showbiz
column before becoming an associate editor.
His career
has given him great power and influence in British media and access to the
worlds of television, celebrity and the monarchy, on which it is his
highly-paid professional role to report.
Tonight, a
representative for Dan Wootton declined to provide Byline Times with an
on-the-record response. It is understood that he strongly denies all
allegations of criminality. The representative did not clarify, when asked,
whether Wootton also denies being Martin Branning.
‘The Next
Day, the Profile was Gone’
Byline
Times’ evidence extends to an account of admissions Dan Wootton made to a
trusted former colleague and friend in which “during his many moments of
crisis” he revealed his fear of being exposed as Martin Branning, and the
prospect of a “pile on” of victims.
One victim
– who is married with children – told this newspaper that he was left “in
shock” to receive a text from “Branning” offering him £10,000 “tax free” in
return for “private work” and to “pose nude”, adding that it “felt like
blackmail or entrapment”.
A second
victim told Byline Times that Branning had sent him messages from untraceable
numbers “day and night” offering sums up to £30,000 in return for sexually
compromising pictures “and that sort of thing”. This victim said he had
uncovered a “pattern of men who had worked with Wootton” being harassed with
unsolicited malicious communications.
“It was all
pretty much always the same thing, £20-£30,000 for naked photos, ‘aren’t you
intrigued about who I am?’ – this sort of stuff, right,” he said – adding that
it was driving him “insane” and ultimately provoked him to go to the police,
who sent a detective to his home to take a statement in 2019.
A third
victim – a former junior colleague who has indicated that he is willing to
speak to the police – revealed how on several occasions he received disguised
calls with offers of “work” with a sexual context and said it was “pretty
obvious” they were from Wootton.
A fourth
victim – another junior colleague – was contacted on Facebook by Wootton in
2009 posing as a blonde woman called “Maria Joseph” who exchanged “flirty
messages” before swapping images of an unconnected female face from reality TV
in return for images of the colleague, who is heterosexual and today also
married with children.
The fourth
victim said: “I received a friend request from a girl called ‘Maria Joseph’.
Immediately she was very flirty and, having just come out of a messy break-up,
I didn’t have my wits about me as much as I should.
“‘She’ soon
started to send me semi-nude pics and swapped to email and phone. Her number
was a New Zealand number as she said she’d just come back from a year over
there. As more pics came through, she started to request them from me, which I
duly obliged (fortunately I kept my face out of).
“Then she
started to send ones she’d already sent, which she brushed off with ‘obviously
I’m talking to a few guys at the same time’. At this point, I’m being super
careful and start to snoop further into her profile. Catfishing wasn’t really a
known thing back then, but I knew something was up.
“We had
five friends in common on Facebook – Dan plus four others. When I clicked the
others, the only common link was Dan.
“Then a
video came through of her having sex with a man. However, I recognised him as
someone from a reality TV show as he’s a friend of a friend. This made me
realise I knew the identity of the girl [and that it could not be legitimate].
“So with this,
the NZ number, the sole common denominator, I was sure it was him. So, I
messaged ‘Maria’ to say ‘Hi Dan, interesting way to get dick pics’. The next
day, the profile was gone.
“I was
embarrassed that I had not been vigilant. It makes my blood run cold as to how
vulnerable I had made myself. I felt stupid.”.
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Byline Times
is publishing today following a series of revelations made on Twitter by
Wootton’s former partner of four years Alex Truby, in a thread of tweets which
– at the time of publication – had attracted more than 15 million views.
Mr Truby
said that Wootton gained unauthorised access to his social media accounts and
email, leading him to suspect that he was being stalked. The intrusion became
evident when Mr Truby found his Gmail account was being accessed from an IP
address at the News of the World office, where Wootton was employed at the
time.
Mr Truby
also told how, while he was flat-sitting for Wootton in 2013, who was visiting
family in New Zealand, he found a padlocked holdall concealed behind Wootton’s
washing machine – which he opened and found an external hard-drive inside
containing a secretly-filmed video of an employee of The Sun engaged in sexual
activity with their partner.
With the
video, Mr Truby described finding a transcript of an MSN Messenger conversation
between The Sun employee’s partner and ‘Martin Branning’.
“The MSN
conversation [was] between the colleague’s partner and someone called ‘Martin
Branning’ whereby an arrangement was indeed made to make the sex tape in
secret, without his colleague’s knowledge in exchange for £500,” Mr Truby
wrote. “I knew instantly that ‘Martin Branning’ was Dan.”
Byline
Times has learned that, before ending his relationship with Wootton, Mr Truby
confronted him over the contents of the holdall. Mr Truby said that Wootton
made a tearful admission of guilt, acknowledging he was the creator and controller
of the pseudonym Martin Branning.
Byline
Times has put the content of this story in its entirety to GB News, MailOnline
and the Metropolitan Police.
After it
was announced that Wootton would be fronting his regular GB News show at 9pm
this evening, Byline Times again approached it for comment, extending the
deadline for a response. At the time of publication, no comment had been
provided.
A
spokesperson for News UK said: “We have received an email from Byline this
afternoon which we are looking into. We are not able to make any further
comment at this stage.”
This
newspaper’s dossier of evidence remains with the Metropolitan Police.
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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