About This Episode
What is this episode about?
The Boyfriend Who Never Existed: Inside The "Bed Trick" Trial is an episode of Criminal: True Crime Podcast on Guilt, Innocence and Gray Areas about an unusual trial in England in which a woman, referred to as Miss X, accused her best friend Gayle of posing as a man and tricking her into a sexual relationship. Gayle denied any deception, insisting that Miss X knew who she was with throughout their relationship.
The episode features an interview with author Izabella Scott, whose book, The Bed Trick: Sex and Deception on Trial, examines the case and the legal questions it raised about consent, identity, and what counts as deception in the eyes of the law. The conversation explores how the court weighed two starkly different accounts of the same relationship — one describing an elaborate fabricated identity, the other describing a consensual relationship between two people who knew each other's true identities.
Hosts and release
Phoebe Judge hosts the episode, with Lauren Spohrer producing. Criminal is a weekly true crime podcast releasing new episodes every Friday, and has been on air since January 2014, produced in the USA. This episode runs 38 minutes and was released on September 22, 2026, as part of the show's ongoing exploration of guilt, innocence, and the gray areas between them.
