BIZARRE CASE OF THE INTERNET
A WOMAN tried to enchant men with a false identity and snaps of an attractive girl she met by a holiday pool 17 years ago.
Julie Wood, 46, created a character she called Jaye Mayhew – and used images of Lil Horsley, 25, as she chatted on social media.
She posted Lil’s pictures on a string of sites, calling herself Jaye, aged 29 and “a party animal who likes to meet new friends”.
It was hardly a surprise that Lil knew nothing of this. She had met Julie only on a holiday many years earlier – when she was EIGHT. They hadn’t seen each other since.
She might never have found out had she not been tipped off by two men whose suspicions were raised.
Grown- up Lil, a dinner lady, was horrified to learn her picture had been passed off as “Jaye” on a series of sites for five years.
The snaps even appeared on a dating site – even though Julie is still married to Steve, who was on that Majorca holiday in 2001.
Lil recalled: “Julie got chatting to my parents by the pool at the hotel. My parents used to go to the bar across the road with them.
Pregnant
“They used to enter the quiz every night as a team – and always won.
“Julie and Steve even played in the pool with me. They were really lovely. Julie told us that she had found out she was pregnant the day before she arrived.
“She even sent us a picture of her and her baby months later.”
But Lil and her family, from York, never saw Julie again – even though she and Steve lived only 50 miles away in Keighley.
Lil added: “She would send us a Christmas card every year. Then, around 2008, I had a Facebook friend request from her.
“I thought, ‘ Oh it’s that woman from years ago,’ and never thought anything of it.”
But last month Lil got a Facebook message from a man who suggested somebody was using her pictures.
The man asked Lil if her name was Jaye Mayhew.
Lil explained: “He said he had been talking to someone called Jaye for several years.
“He sent me screenshots from Instagram of someone reposting my photos under that name.”
Lil told the man he must have fallen for the wiles of a catfisher – someone who uses false identities online with other people’s pics.
She added: “At first I just thought it was a random person catfishing this man. But then it got weirder. Days later another man messaged me. He told me that Jaye and him had been speaking for five years.
“He told me he thought it was a woman called Julie Wood. He’d started to get suspicious after Jaye refused to meet him so he did some digging. When he said the name Julie Wood I was astounded.” Online photos even appeared of Lil’s niece with captions suggesting the girl was Jaye’s daughter. A fake account was also set up for Lil’s mum – but passed off as being Jaye’s mum.
Lil’s face appeared on a Snapchat account and on the dating website Badoo. Under Lil’s picture – was this flirty profile for Jaye: “I’m a party animal who loves to meet new friends. I’m single, straight, 165cm, average body, black hair and brown eyes, living by myself, have children, don’t like smoking, I drink a lot. I speak English, Spanish (fluent).” Lil, who is single with no children, said: “The photos are from several