How I was tricked into dating ‘man’ with fake penis as red flags exposed by expert

Roxanne Shurmur had been single for nine months when she decided to turn to dating apps in a bid to find love again after a traumatic time in her personal life, but that soon became one of her biggest regrets.

Aged 22 at the time and just two days into swiping left or right, she matched with a man named TJ who seemed “like a right laugh” and someone she could relax around. Little did she know just how many secrets were hidden about his true identity.

“TJ made me feel relaxed, TJ made me feel heard and TJ made me feel like everything I had felt was OK,” she explains in UKTV’s documentary Red Flag. After being raped aged 16, Roxanne was put off men until she plucked up the courage to date again six years later, and TJ reassured her that all was going to be fine.

Keen to know more about her potential lover, she decided to meet him after two weeks of talking to him on the phone. While a little shorter in person than she had expected, Roxanne said there was “no awkwardness” and the conversations between them were effortless, as if she had known him for years.

During the date, however, TJ, real name Tarjit Singh, asked Roxanne if she minded going back to his dad’s house with him so he could change into cooler clothes. While thinking it was “weird” at first, the 22-year-old followed along and was swiftly taken aback by how “filthy” the house was, which he apologised for.

Despite this, Roxanne continued to date TJ which, when looking back on it, she admits evolved “very intense very quickly”. After just three weeks of dating and despite a first bad impression, she then decided to move in with him and that’s when cracks began to appear.

Roxanne grew suspicious of TJ when he was hesitant about having sex with her and when he eventually did, it was with the lights off and clothing kept on. With their one and only sexual encounter also being “uncomfortable”, she decided to look into her concerns and it was only then that he told her that he was transitioning from male to female.

Despite deciding to support him through the change and stay with him, TJ insisted he wanted to undergo the surgery on his own and claimed it was only going to take a day. After returning home hours after allegedly going in for the op, Roxanne recalled: “It just didn’t look right. TJ said I’ve had this done, I’ve had that done and they’ve built a vagina.

“It was almost like TJ had an answer for the whole scenario.”

Things swiftly took a turn, however, when Roxanne’s suspicions grew further and she eventually found his prosthetic penis and birth certificate, which determined that he was already born a girl, named Hannah Walters.

TJ grew even more violent when she confronted him over what she had found out, and after her loved ones encouraged her to go to the police, he was eventually sentenced.

An investigation found Singh had two more victims, one who was just 16 at the time. He was convicted at Snaresbrook Crown Court of three counts of assault by penetration, six counts of actual bodily harm, and one count of making a threat to kill in July 2022.

The judge jailed Singh for 10 years, with an additional three on licence and labelled him “an accomplished and manipulative liar”.

During the documentary, Roxanne’s case is examined by a string of behaviour experts including psychotherapist Jane Hind who said TJ’s actions were a sign of trauma bonding.

She explains: “Trauma bonding is a term used to describe perpetrators online and off will use trauma as a means to bond with their victim to initiate pity, sympathy, empathy and attention from the person on the receiving end.

“When TJ discloses that he’s going to have this gender reassignment surgery, he needed to lure Roxanne in here by making her feel sorry for him, pitying him, you know realising how tender and wounded he was but obviously the goal is to coercive and control her.”

Jane also highlights how isolating a partner from loved ones is also a major red flag, as proven in Roxanne’s case when TJ sneakily cut off communication with her friends and family.

Love bombing is also a term looked into in the documentary. It is a form of psychological and emotional abuse that involves a person going above and beyond for you in an effort to manipulate you into a relationship with them. This behaviour looks different for every person, but it usually involves some form of excessive flattery and praise.