Woman jailed for posing as a man found guilty of same deception again

A woman who is already in prison for sexual assault after pretending to be a man has been found guilty of deceiving a second woman in the same way.

On Tuesday, a jury at Caernarfon crown court in north Wales convicted Blade Silvano, 44, of six counts of sexual assault by penetration. The offences took place between November 2022 and June 2023.

What happened?

Silvano contacted the woman on the dating site Plenty of Fish using the name "Hunter". She claimed to be a man who was a captain and surgeon in the army.

The court heard they met in person for sex, always with the lights very low. Silvano did not allow herself to be touched intimately. On one occasion she claimed a condom had broken and told the woman: "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

The woman began to have doubts. She noticed her partner sounded "a little feminine" and found their sex life "odd". Then Silvano's long-term partner, a woman, called her and said "Hunter" was female.

The victim told police she felt sick and first thought it was a joke. In court she said: "I believed I was in a relationship with a straight, heterosexual man. I would never go out with a woman."

What had happened before?

Silvano was jailed in Cambridge in 2023 for a near-identical deception. Using the fake name Blade Mendez, she posed as a male army veteran during a two-year relationship, the jury in that case heard. She used a blindfold, a sex toy and what the court called a "wholly fake persona". The couple even got engaged, and the woman was encouraged to try on wedding dresses.

Those offences took place in 2016 and 2017. The victim found out in September 2018, when she came across Silvano on Facebook living a completely different life. Silvano was convicted of two counts of assault by penetration.

Prosecutor Philip Clemo told the jury in Wales that Silvano was a gifted con artist.

What's next?

Silvano, from Shropshire, will be sentenced for the six new offences next month. Judge Jones ordered a pre-sentence report, which will assess the risk she poses.

She is already serving a prison sentence from the 2023 case.