Police ill-equipped to tackle surge in cyber stalking and harassment

FRONTLINE police officers are underequipped for a surge in a new breed of crime, experts and victims say.

• Stalking spree
• Firebird’s ordeal

FRONTLINE police officers should receive more specialised training on cybercrime as internet stalking and harassment cases soar, experts and victims say.

Queenslanders are increasingly reporting online stalking and harassment cases as courts show they are willing to jail the worst offenders.

Brisbane man Ryan Kotynski was this month jailed for 4½ years after he used the internet to create fake profiles of his ex-girlfriend. He encouraged men to visit her home to carry out rape fantasies.

Dalby father of two Stephen Grott was jailed for a year for using a fake profile under the name of Jayke Williams to stalk and harass girls.

Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network statistics show 227 Queenslanders reported being bullied or stalked online in the three months from October 1, to December 31, 2016.

This was up from the same period in 2015, when 154 Queenslanders complained.

Susan McLean, who was a detective for 27 years before starting Cyber Safety Solutions, said people being harassed or stalked online needed to be proactive about seeking help.

She said frontline police needed to broaden their knowledge of internet crime to prove to keyboard warriors that they were at serious risk of prosecution.

“This is why we haven’t got a lot of runs on the board in relation to punishment, people don’t speak up,” she said.

“They won’t come forward. They complain or they go to the media and say they are being abused online.

“There is a distinct lack of training for frontline police. Most of them don’t know how to investigate these kinds of crimes when online investigating is some of the simplest investigating you can do.”

She said Queensland Police Service already had the expertise in the world-recognised Task Force Argos, responsible for investigating online child exploitation and abuse.

“They are the best in Australia. They have no peer. But you don’t get Task Force Argos when you go into your local police station,” Ms McLean said.

“So, at the highest level, the police are really well trained. On the frontline we are sadly lacking in expertise in this area.”

Queensland Police Service declined to comment, but senior investigators said police were gaining knowledge all the time.

“There’s a phone or internet element to every single job we do,” one said.

“A small part of it is generational – there are some older (police) not so familiar but many young ones who know plenty.”

Patrick Turner, from Maurice Blackburn’s employment and industrial law team, said online harassment in the workplace was also more common.

“We’ve had a big increase in the number of clients coming to us over cyber bullying,” he said.

“Usually by way of social media. Social media has given workplace bullies new platforms.

“I think these people think there’s a bit of impunity there, because they are behind a computer.

“But cyber bullying often leaves a record ­observable by the workplace and if it’s not the ­employee taking action, often we are seeing the employer take the disciplinary action themselves.”

Cyber stalking victim Robyn Night and son. Picture: Jamie Hanson

Jail term for online stalker

ROBYN Night was 35 weeks pregnant when she heard the car stop outside her house. She knew a man would be waiting.

There would be 50 men over the four years Robyn was victim to a sadistic stalker – each believing they had been making plans with her to carry out a rape or sex fantasy.

From 2011 to 2015, she lived in terror, petrified one would mistake her denials for part of the act.

Robyn’s stalker was jailed this month for 4½ years. But it took police four years to discover her ex-boyfriend, Ryan Kotynski, was behind her years of torment.

She believes he did it out of spite for cheating on him. When Robyn and her husband tracked down an IP address, a detective told her there was still nothing they could do.

“I went to the police ... on five different occasions and all of them said there was nothing they could do to help me,” she said.

“(An) officer told me unless I was physically touched or raped, there was nothing they could do. I remember I was crying, hysterical, on the phone because another man had turned up.”

Finally, her husband wrote to the police commissioner and detectives tracked down Kotynski. Robyn said she would like to see harsher penalties for offenders.