Deepfake predator exposed: How ex-soldier created twisted fake porn profiles for four women including his own wife - and offered their sexual services
For Kirsty Pellant, it started with strange friend requests on Facebook and off-colour messages from people she'd never met.But it was a Valentine's card bearing a cryptic message that left her really baffled. 'Hiya Kirsty, so nice that we have got in touch,' it read. 'Look forward to meeting you soon.'Kirsty, who was then working as head of safeguarding in a Church of England primary school, racked her brains trying to think who it might be from. When her secret admirer revealed that his interest had been sparked by explicit images on the internet, Kirsty's curiosity gave way to shocked disbelief.Only then did the 45-year-old learn that someone was posting photographs from her Facebook page on porn and escort websites. Worse, the pictures were doctored to produce 'deep fake' pornography - the digital splicing of innocent photos with sexual ones taken from elsewhere - before being put online.More distressing still, the accompanying captions gave Kirsty's full name as well as her location. Describing her with unsavoury soubriquets such as 'S****y Teacher', they also claimed she was offering sexual services.The discovery marked the beginning of an eight-year nightmare before Jonathan Bates, a former teaching colleague, was jailed in January 2025 for posting the images.With multiple online accounts appearing to give first-person details of her supposed exploits, including group sex in a local pub, Kirsty's life became a constant round of monitoring websites and trying to have offensive material removed.It later emerged that Bates had created hundreds of fake porn and escort profiles using photos of workmates, acquaintances, complete strangers and even his own wife. Following a series of apparent police failures, he was only brought to justice when some of his victims joined the dots to work out who was targeting them. For Kirsty Pellant (pictured), it started with strange friend requests on Facebook and off-colour messages from people she'd never met. She soon learnt someone was posting photographs from her Facebook page on porn and escort websites The discovery marked the beginning of an eight-year nightmare before Jonathan Bates (pictured), a former teaching colleague, was jailed in January 2025 for posting the imagesThe extraordinary story is told in full in Faked: Hunting my Online Predator, a documentary due to be broadcast on ITV on Sunday night, in which Kirsty is among four victims bravely reliving the ordeal Bates put them through.It should serve as a warning to women everywhere, with indications that this new form of criminality is not only out of control, but rapidly becoming normalised.Research indicates a staggering 1,780 per cent increase in the number of online deepfakes between 2019 and 2024, yet as recently as November the National Police Chiefs' Council suggested that one in four people 'feel there is nothing wrong with, or feel neutral about, creating and sharing sexual deepfakes, even when the person depicted has not consented'.Kirsty had been mystified when the Valentine's card first arrived at her home in Canterbury, Kent, in February 2017. 'I just didn't understand. It was like I knew this person, but obviously I had no clue,' she says. 'This was the start of everything that I then uncovered.'It emerged that Kirsty's admirer was not Bates himself, but a man who had been taken in by the fake pictures. 'George' - not his real name - who had spotted Kirsty on a bizarrely named porn site called xHamster, believed the images to be genuine, and was seeking a partner for casual sex.As she would later discover to her horror, Kirsty's full name had been published on the site - plus the fact that she lived in Canterbury.'George', who also appears in the documentary, tracked down Kirsty's address and sent the Valentine's card. But it was only when he found a way to contact her directly that the truth would finally emerge.'I went online, googled myself,' recalls Kirsty. 'I think I was just stunned.'None of it made sense. There was just so much [of it] - it was just like the worst nightmare.'You had my profile picture, my name up there. It said things like "s****y whore", "s****y teacher". And then you had a naked lady laying down who had dark hair. You didn't see her face so it looked like it could have been me.'I could see the similarities. I could see that other people are going to think that that is actually me. There was writing underneath it saying what sexual fantasies I was into.'The purported - and entirely made-up - 'fantasies' listed included 'humiliation, public exposure and gang bangs'. The contrast between these obscene descriptions and the life she led in reality could hardly have been more extreme.Describing one of the accompanying photos, Kirsty says: 'I remember this picture because I was in an indoor play area for children with my friend's daughter and I was holding her hand.'That was replaced with a photoshop of an older male and my hand is now holding his penis.'She even appeared on Facebook, where Kirsty found herself described as 'a porn star'. One commenter said that she 'thinks she's kinky as f***', while another remarked: 'I don't see how someone like that can work with kids'.'There was so much nastiness. And knowing that I still needed to go to work the next day and face the people that had been talking so badly about me,' she continues. It later emerged that the ex-paratrooper (pictured) had created hundreds of fake porn and escort profiles using photos of workmates, acquaintances, complete strangers and even his own wife The extraordinary story is told in full in Faked: Hunting my Online Predator, a documentary due to be broadcast on ITV on Sunday night, in which Kirsty (pictured) is among four victims bravely reliving the ordeal Bates put them through'It was the not being able to prove it [was untrue]. How can you prove that it's not you naked in a video when it looks very similar to you?'Bates had also posted fake blogs purporting to chronicle Kirsty's sex life in the most graphic terms.'I just knew that every morning I would have to wake up and see what I was meant to have been doing the night before and what would be the latest gossip in the playground,' she continued.'I just became a shell of my former self.'Among the most upsetting aspects of it all, she recalls, was 'trying to get your head around who would have done such a thing'.She says: 'I was questioning everybody that I knew.'So I didn't know if I was working with them. I didn't know if they were in one of my classes. Literally everybody became a suspect.'Three hundred miles away in Cornwall, mother-of-two Donna King, 49, was going through a similar ordeal. It was January 2020 when she learned from gossip she was 'on some porn website' - and was devastated to find that the rumours were correct. For the next two years, she was repeatedly confronted by fake content on xHamster.First, she discovered was that a page had been created on social media site Pinterest featuring 'dodgy pictures' lifted from her Facebook account and then digitally manipulated.'Unlike Kirsty I wasn't naked in the shots, but it was still vile,' she explains.Her 'fetishes' were listed as 'masturbation, hand job and double penetration'. Worse soon followed.'I went on Google and just started searching for images of myself. There was just loads and loads of websites. On some of them I was advertised as an escort - and that had my postcode on it, which was quite concerning.'At one point, I found a video and it was a lady who looked like it could have been me. But it was a rude video, she had no underwear on and she's pulling her skirt up - and it had my name underneath it.'Around this time, Donna realised that most of the photos appearing online had only been accessible under the 'friends only' setting on her Facebook page. Initially she thought a former boyfriend was responsible, before her suspicions moved to another male friend.But she had also noticed that some of the X-rated accounts purporting to be her had befriended women with similar explicit profiles, prompting her to wonder if these might also be fake.Donna managed to establish the full name of one woman after combining details from a Pinterest profile and another on the iChive site. Bates (pictured) admitted four charges of stalking by creating fake online accounts and a fifth charge of disclosing private sexual photographs with intent when he appeared at Truro Crown Court in January last year. He was sentenced to five years in jail and handed a ten-year ban on contacting his victims'After that, I started to look on Facebook to see if I could find her,' she continues.'So I sent her a message and I said, "Hi, my name is Donna and I've got this problem - someone's been taking my photos off Facebook and putting them on porn sites".'And she replied really quick and she told me, "Yes, I've had the same problem as well".'It turned out that this third woman - who doesn't appear in the documentary - knew Kirsty. Between them, the three victims then worked out that they shared one common Facebook contact: a man called Jonathan Bates.By that stage, Bates had moved from Canterbury to Cornwall with his wife and young child. He had encountered Donna briefly through mutual friends at a funeral gathering and contacted her months later on Facebook.In the documentary, she tells how she had 'a bit of a eureka moment' when she checked Bates's 'relationship status' on Facebook, saw that he was married and recognised his wife's photo from an iChive profile linked to hers.Donna contacted the wife 'Lauren' - not her real name - and, although Bates initially tried to claim his laptop had been hacked, the game was up. Police who searched his home found nine USB sticks and photos of hundreds of women - including, potentially, many more victims.In his attic, he had hidden stashed the names and addresses of women taken from a hospital where he had worked as medical records clerk. It also emerged that he had posted images online of his wife asleep naked as well as actual videos of them having sex.Ex-paratrooper Bates, who served in the military for 15 years before re-training as a teacher, admitted four charges of stalking by creating fake online accounts and a fifth charge of disclosing private sexual photographs with intent when he appeared at Truro Crown Court in January last year. It also emerged that he had a previous conviction for causing actual bodily harm.Sentencing him to five years in jail and handing down a ten-year ban from contacting his victims, Judge Simon Carr told the father-of-one: 'You appear to have gained pleasure from the humiliation and terrorising of these women.'The effect upon them has been utterly devastating.'No firm motive has ever been established. Some victims seem to have been picked almost at random.One woman he targeted, Hayley, from Southend in Essex, says: 'I had no links with this man. He doesn't know me. I do not know him.'Every time I googled my name, more pictures would appear. Whoever was doing this was just constantly uploading on different websites and I felt like I couldn't keep on top of it.'Did he just want to degrade women because something's happened to him and he's out for revenge?'For her part, Bates's ex-wife - who had to hand over a £62,000 settlement when she divorced him - says: 'Jon's never said sorry to me.'I'm not sure he will use any time in prison to reflect on what he's done because I'm not sure if he is remorseful,' she tells the programme. 'I think that he's sorry for himself.'The man now behind bars, she says, is unrecognisable from the friendly, kind and chatty man she first met.Kirsty, too, admits she would never have suspected the true identity of her tormentor.From their time working together, she remembers Bates as having a 'good sense of humour' and that he 'just seemed like a nice guy'.She doesn't think that now.'Jon Bates took away many years I won't ever get back - my reputation, my dignity,' she concludes. 'For another human being to do that to you is just despicable.'Speaking to the programme makers, Revenge Porn Helpline chief Sophie Mortimer says: 'The biggest problem that we have here is around the takedown of this sort of content.'The sharing of an intimate image without consent is illegal - but the image itself - if it's of an adult - isn't [illegal].'And that creates some barriers to either getting content removed or taking steps to make these images less visible.''We need government to step in to give people the tools to remove, take down and block that content from being seen.'With pornographic fakery already ubiquitous, and the prospect of AI now threatening an exponential increase in the number of devastated victims, that help cannot come soon enough.Additional reporting by Simon TrumpFaked, Hunting my Online Predator is on ITV, Sunday March 8 at 10.20pm.
