Years ago, Prince William, Prince Harry and Kate did Heads Together, which was supposed to be some kind of big bureaucracy to manage all of their mental-health related work. I always sort of shrugged off the simplistic message of “talk to someone, therapy can help you.” But more and more, I really do feel like everyone in the UK needs a massive amount of therapy. Byline Times released Part 3 of their on-going Dan Wootton exposé, and this piece is all about Wootton’s “first victim,” the first guy he ever blackmailed under the alias Martin Branning. I am truly struggling to unpack the layers of creepiness, abuse, obsession and sexual pathology happening with Wootton. I don’t really want to “unpack” it honestly, because all of it is a huge YIKES. You can read the full piece here.

I’m not going to excerpt it the Byline article because it’s complicated and honestly, it’s really disgusting. Basically, in 2008, Wootton-as-Martin Branning cold-contacted the partner of one of Wootton’s colleagues. Wootton offered the guy money to film himself having sex with random people. Wootton controlled almost everything about these recordings and did so entirely online or through texts or third-parties. This guy probably made dozens of tapes, and he was paid in “sweaty wads of twenties” via courier. Wootton then used all of these tapes to blackmail the guy and his partner (who was Wootton’s coworker). The guy who did the videos tells Byline: “The fall-out from this went on for years. I literally quit my London life; I lost everything. I went into the depths of depression. I definitely considered suicide. I didn’t want to be around any more. I blamed myself for the whole situation. I am only coming to terms with it now. Now I want to get it sorted out.”

So… yeah, what is the pathology here? Wootton was getting off on all or some of this – it wasn’t just a money thing or blackmail thing, nor was it merely about power. And consider this as well – Wootton had much more conventional ways of accumulating and maintaining power within the British media. He didn’t *need* to catfish and blackmail his coworkers and their partners for years. He did it because he enjoyed doing it, because he was getting off on it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, GB News.