A teenage student subjected to a four-year “catfishing” nightmare after her identity was stolen by another teenage girl in her town has won a £10,000 High Court damages payout.
Starting when she was only 16, Sasha Davies was targeted by “complete stranger” Elha-Mai Weston – another teenager living in the same Welsh town – who used her social media pictures and AI-generated content to create a string of fake online profiles.
Targeting men on Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Tinder and other platforms, Miss Weston, who lived in the same area of Glamorgan, Wales, as Sasha, built up a following of more than 100,000, who thought the profiles were Sasha’s.
Some of them were even led to believe by “catfish” Miss Weston that they were in romantic relationships with now 19-year-old Sasha, stopping her in the street to speak to her.
Despite contacting police, the campaign continued for nearly four years across seven different platforms until Sasha got lawyers to track down her abuser.
She sued the identity thief at the High Court in London and has now won a £10,000 compensation payout after Miss Weston admitted through lawyers that she was to blame and apologised before a judge.
Speaking afterwards, Sasha said: “For four years someone else was living a life as me, talking to men as me, while strangers approached me in the street believing they knew me.
“I reported it over and over and was made to feel nothing could be done. I stopped feeling safe leaving the house.
“Hearing her admit in court that it was her, and apologise, means I can finally start getting my life back. I want other girls going through this to know it is not hopeless, the person doing it can be found.”
In a settlement statement given in court with the agreement of Miss Weston, Sasha’s barrister Chris Zabilowicz said her ordeal began when she was only 16 and continued until this earlier year.
“Miss Weston engaged in a sustained campaign of online impersonation, commonly known as catfishing, of Miss Davies,” he told Mr Justice Fordham.
“Miss Weston created and operated numerous accounts under the fictitious identity ‘Sophie’ and variants thereof, including ‘Sophie Kadare’.
“Those accounts collectively accumulated more than 100,000 followers and used photographs – and, in due course, AI-generated imagery – of Miss Davies without her knowledge or consent.
“Through those accounts, Miss Weston communicated with a large number of individuals, including by way of personal and romantic conversations.
“As a consequence, Miss Davies has been approached on a number of occasions by members of the public who had interacted with the ‘Sophie’ persona and believed they had a genuine connection with her.
“On one occasion, a man showed Miss Davies messages he had exchanged with one of the fake accounts over a period of months, having believed throughout that he was in a romantic relationship with Miss Davies.”
Although Sasha contacted police about the abuse, it was only after an appearance on the BBC’s ‘This Morning’ that most of the accounts were deleted.
Miss Weston was then identified by Sasha’s lawyers, Cohen Davis Solicitors, through an open-source intelligence investigation which connected the fake persona’s network of accounts to her real identity.
High Court proceedings were launched, with Miss Weston agreeing to a settlement of the case, which was concluded this week by the reading of the agreed statement in court.
Mr Zabilowicz said Miss Weston had accepted “that her conduct was wrongful,” continuing: “She further acknowledges the very significant distress and suffering it has caused Miss Davies.
“Miss Weston deeply regrets her actions and apologises to Miss Davies wholeheartedly and unreservedly for everything she has been put through.”
As part of the order to settle the case, Miss Weston – who did not attend court for the hearing – has agreed to pay Sasha £10,000 compensation and given an undertaking never to contact her, to delete all materials and not to repeat her actions again.
Any breach of the order could result in her being hauled back before a judge for contempt of court, with the risk of a jail sentence if found in contempt.
Speaking afterwards, Sasha’s solicitor Yair Cohen said: “For four years, Sasha did everything right. She reported it to the platforms and to the police, and she was failed, because the person behind the accounts was anonymous and everyone treated anonymity as the end of the road.
“It is not. We identified her using open-source intelligence, from the traces her own accounts left behind. Once a catfish loses their anonymity, the campaign collapses.
“Catfishing is one of the most misunderstood forms of online abuse. People imagine a distant stranger, but in case after case we have handled, including this one, the person behind the accounts was somebody within the victim’s own world.
“There is no offence called catfishing on the statute book, but the conduct around it – harassment, misuse of private information, breach of data protection law – is unlawful, and the civil courts can deliver identification, compensation and enforceable protection.
“This matter is also not over. Now that we have the evidence and an acknowledgement of wrongdoing in open court, we will be asking the police to investigate.”
