'Brad Pitt body double' jailed in Scotland's first 'stealthing' rape case

An aspiring actor who claimed to be a body double for Brad Pitt has been handed a 16-year jail sentence following Scotland’s first prosecution for “stealthing”.

Luke Ford, 35, was found guilty last month of 18 charges of abusing nine women, including raping six of them and the attempted rape of another.

His case is also the first prosecution in Scotland for “stealthing” – defined as not using a protective condom during sex without a partner’s knowledge.

Ford was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh on Thursday, where the judge also placed Ford on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

He was given a custodial sentence of 16 years and an extended sentence of five years.

Non-harassment orders were also granted, banning Ford from contacting or attempting to contact the victims.  

Ford, from Stirling, was a jobbing actor and model, and claimed to be a stand-in for Brad Pitt on movie World War Z, which was shot in Glasgow in 2013.

He also appeared in the video for Deacon Blue’s “This Is A Love Song”.

The trial was told earlier this year that Ford had terrorised the seven women over a 12-year period, subjecting them to physical, mental and sexual abuse.

He targeted women on dating apps, first showering them with affection before financially exploiting, controlling and abusing them.

One of Ford’s victims, who spoke to STV News on the condition of anonymity, said: “I honestly believe that he’s a serial perpetrator and a master manipulator and there’s many more victims out there.”

“He genuinely thought he was going to be the next Brad Pitt. I think there were multiple stunt doubles but the way that he spun it – it looked like he was Brad Pitt’s one-and-only stunt double.

“But he became fixated with that time and then he modelled his hair on Brad Pitt, he was quite obsessed with Brad Pitt I would say.

“I would say it’s taken me a long time to get over what happened and say that life is good now. Being with someone like Luke colours the way you see the world. But on a positive note, hopefully I’ll never be misled by someone like that again.”

The woman said Ford was a “master manipulator” who made her feel good in the early days of their relationship.

She also said he was really charming and good company but had a lot of very narcissistic traits.

“I think there was a lot of red flags in the beginning that I overlooked,” she said. “I think when he started to show his true colours, you kind of excused his behaviour by feeling sorry for him because of his background.

“There was just no escaping the relationship, he just needed to know where you were all of the time, he was relentless in his pursuit of you.

“You couldn’t question him, what he was up to, but he had to know, so you just felt very trapped, you felt like there was no way out. To get away from him, you would have to make a drastic change in your life, to actually be able to escape him.

“It just became commonplace the way that he degraded you – he spoke to you in a terrible way, put you down and could be physically violent. At the worst point, he was aggressive, angry and really psychologically and emotionally abusive on a daily basis.

“I genuinely had no idea how I was going to get away from the situation. I became so isolated from friends and family, I became so isolated from my life that it became harder and harder to reach out to someone, and there was a part of you that felt sorry for him and cared for him too.

“He made you feel like you were the only person that had this effect on him – I honestly believed it was my fault, I thought that what he was doing was entirely my fault and that it was a personality defect that I had.

“It was a double-edged sword, you felt sorry for him and then you thought you were to blame, and you were so isolated in your relationship there was no way out.”

“I always suspected there were other victims and when the police contacted me I wasn’t in the least bit surprised.

“No matter what amount of time he gets, it will never justify the impact it’s had on my life. The only one that would really mean something to me is an order for lifelong restriction, which means that any new partner he gets, the police would have to contact them and make them aware of his past convictions because that would be the only way to keep people safe.”

In the “stealthing” case, Ford met a female psychologist on Tinder in 2017 and after a few dates they discussed having sex.

She messaged Ford stipulating that he use protection because she did not want to risk pregnancy and he responded, “good idea”.

When they were in bed, she handed him a condom but he later told her that he had not used it.

She said: “I was shocked and upset. I would not have had sex with him without a condom. I asked him to leave. I felt completely violated.”

When she confronted him the next day with concern that she could be pregnant, he angrily dismissed her as “paranoid”, saying that it was “no big deal” and to take the morning-after pill.

He texted: “Just get the pill and if you are pregnant get rid of it.”

There have only been only two previous successful prosecutions for stealthing in the UK, both in England, in 2019 and earlier this year.

In June, the Metropolitan Police said they would “continue to raise awareness that this crime is a form of rape” after Guy Mukendi, 39, of Brixton in south London, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison for taking a condom he was wearing off without consent during sex.

Katrina Parkes, Scotland’s procurator fiscal for High Court sexual offending, said Ford “is a serial offender who demonstrated no respect for the consent of his victims”.   

She added: “He was prepared to use manipulation, force or threats to carry out his abuse. He showed disregard for the importance of consent between partners.  

“It is significant that amongst the many offences he committed our prosecutors were able to prove rape in Ford’s failure to use a condom during sex – without the consent of his then-partner. 

“This demonstrates the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Services commitment to continued development in the way sexual offences are prosecuted, using every tool at our disposal to secure justice for victims. 

“I hope that the many victims in this troubling case find some relief in Ford being held accountable for his offending.  I commend them for their courage and strength. 

“And I would urge any victim of similar offending to take confidence from Ford’s conviction.  Please come forward, report your experience and seek help.” 

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