Dan Wootton Paid Porn Stars with Sun’s Depp Money for Covert Catfish Sex Videos

Editor’s Note: Readers may find some of the graphic content of this article distressing

GB News presenter Dan Wootton paid adult film stars to meet gay men he had catfished in order to secretly record them having sex, Byline Times can reveal.

Wootton ‘rented’ the Facebook profiles of at least three different male porn performers for up to £500 a time, before posing as them and tricking his targets into meetings to be covertly filmed with cameras he supplied.

At least one of these meetings took place in a hotel paid for by Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun newspaper – of which Wootton was associate editor at the time.

The journalist also charged a £1,500 porn star’s fee for the ‘private work’ to his then employers News UK – disguised as payment to a ‘contact’ for a front-page story about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

This newspaper has interviewed two of the adult performers involved and has evidence from another man also paid by Wootton to make secret sex tapes for him.

Byline Times has also identified two of the victims of Wootton’s catfishing conspiracy, which is separate to his use of the pseudonyms ‘Martin Branning’ and ‘Maria Joseph’, to trick scores of other male victims into revealing compromising sexual material.

For legal reasons, we are not naming the others involved.

However, it can be confirmed that two have given information to the police about their experiences with Wootton between 2009 and 2016 – during which time he worked successively for the now-defunct News of the World, the Daily Mail and The Sun.

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‘Are You Interested in Coming Down and Filming It?’

In this fourth part of a special three-year investigation into Dan Wootton’s personal and professional conduct, the male porn stars have revealed how the presenter paid to use their Facebook profiles to target men of interest.

One told this newspaper: “Dan used to pay us anywhere between £300 and £500 to use our Facebooks. I didn’t know these people he was messaging. It was all males. He was messaging [as] ‘me’ basically.”

He added: “I know he was using the Facebook of two other [adult entertainers]. I was watching the messages on [one of the adult entertainer’s accounts] to this other lad, but he [Wootton] was deleting them – as they were firing out and coming back, he was deleting them as they were going [along].”

Asked if Wootton was destroying evidence on a rolling basis as it came up, the entertainer said: “Yes… Dan was doing it.”

The other adult entertainer said he allowed Wootton to use his Facebook profile because he needed the “easy money” and described seeing the now GB News star targeting “five or six” men from one account.

He said: “He paid me to use my Facebook account. I still had access to it as well but I gave him my password. And then when I felt he’d had enough [time], I’d change my password.”

“After a while, Dan would message me,” he added. “[Wootton would say] ‘I’ve got a guy here. Are you interested in coming down and filming it?’”

The first entertainer continued: “So, he was literally paying people to use their Facebooks [accounts] and film people [having sex]. These people we used to meet, I don’t know who they were. I think they were from Dan’s circle, and [the films] were [an attempt] to get one-up [on them]. 

“I can’t say for certain but I think it was to get [compromising material] on people… That is my belief. Why else would you want someone filmed without their knowledge and be so adamant you want it filmed?”