This paper investigates the behaviour of a defective single-gate bilayer graphene transistor. Point defects were introduced into pristine graphene crystal structure using a tightly focused helium ion beam. The transfer characteristics of the exposed transistors were measured ex-situ for different defect concentrations. The channel peak resistance increased with increasing defect concentration whilst the on-off ratio showed a decreasing trend for both electrons and holes. To understand the electrical behaviour of the transistors, a circuit model for bilayer graphene is developed which shows a very good agreement when validated against experimental data. The model allowed parameter extraction of bilayer transistor and can be implemented in circuit level simulators. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.