Government calls on dating apps to provide better protections for users
Online dating can be a minefield at the best of times. But a raft of Geelong criminals, from an armed robber to someone who glassed their date, are using apps to prey on victims. SEE THE LIST
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Online dating services are now the most common way for Aussies to find love, but Geelong criminals are using them to find victims.
With thousands using dating apps everyday, the government is calling for better protections to safeguard Australians against an unprecedented wave of harassment and abuse in recent years.
The Geelong Magistrates’ Court has seen its fair share of creepy crooks who used dating apps.
Convicted stalker and thief, Peter Antonopoulos, fronted court late last year over a series of bizarre actions after he was dumped by a Lara woman he met on a dating app.
Colac man Deon Cole was jailed for three years because he seriously injured a 52-year-old man after the pair agreed to meet up for sex on classifieds app Locanto.
Crime involving dating apps has become a point of national concern, with Communications Minister Michelle Rowland telling the Geelong Advertiser dating services needed to do more to keep people safe.
“Dating apps are now the most common way to meet a partner in Australia, yet the harms experienced by users of these platforms is deeply concerning,” Ms Rowland said.
“Online dating platforms must do their part to end violence against Australians.”
Platforms such as eHarmony, Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and Grindr are some of the most prominent.
Three out of four Aussies who have used a dating app said they experienced sexual violence in a five-year period to 2021, prompting the government to call for a national roundtable on online dating last year.
Ms Rowland said the government was putting its foot down and demanding popular dating services create new voluntary codes of practice to improve the safety of users.
“We will regulate them,” she warned.
While the industry as a whole is on its way to developing a better voluntary code, Ms Rowland said more needed to be done to protect Aussies and limit any potential harm.
“I have been clear that it (dating app industry) should improve engagement with law enforcement, do more to support at-risk users, improve safety policies and practices, and be more transparent about the risk of harms on their services,” she said.
Most people who are harassed or abused after meeting someone online would rather report the incident to a dating service than go to the police.
As part of a report released in March, the Australian Institute of Criminology found that more than half of sexual violence victims thought a dating service would be able to “protect” them.
Victims said reporting to a dating service was instant and had fewer barriers, adding that dating apps were not limited in how they could respond, while police could only investigate if there was evidence a crime has been committed.
“Those platforms may be one of the first means through which victim-survivors disclose their experiences; they may thus be the primary or only mechanism through which people may receive support,” the report read.
Only eight per cent of victims report their crimes to police, and even fewer to the eSafety Commission, according to the AIC survey.
Victoria Police said victims should be reminded dating apps weren’t “investigators” and any concerning behaviour they experienced should be reported to them first.
“Police are the only ones able to conduct a criminal investigation and hold perpetrators to account,” a spokeswoman said.
She said it didn’t matter how much time had passed or if one party had been “blocked or deleted from an app”, police could still investigate.
Dating App Crooks in Geelong
Peter Antonopoulos
A Geelong magistrate said Peter Antonopoulos’s offending was like something out of a “Netflix horror movie”.
Antonopoulos committed a series of “bizarre” crimes after he was dumped by a Lara woman he met on dating app Plenty of Fish.
He broke into the woman’s home, smashed her iPad, used a lubricant to ruin her switchboard and tried to contact her using different phones.
A day after the short-lived relationship ended, Antonopoulos parked out the front of the woman’s house 12 times over a period of two days in April last year.
He was caught on CCTV breaking into the victim’s house, taking her cat and putting it in his car, as well as stealing a laptop and a phone.
Before fleeing, Antonopoulos grabbed lubricant from the woman’s bedroom drawer and sprayed it all over her switchboard.
He plead guilty to stalking, burglary, theft and intentionally damaging property in Geelong Magistrates’ Court in November last year.
He was later convicted and given a 15-month community corrections order.
Deon Cole
Dean Cole launched a brutal attack against a man in his 50s with a glass and a decorative piece of coral during a planned sexual meet-up.
Last year the court heard Cole had hoped in an Uber to meet the man he met, and sent sexually charged messages to, on dating app Locanto.
Cole was at the man’s Grovedale home for about five hours, even taking time to pose in a picture with a 2m long python.
When Cole was touched in an inappropriate manner, he “freaked out” and struck the man, leaving him with serious injuries.
Judge Trevor Wraight said the victim was “lucky to be alive” and Cole was sentenced to three years in jail, with an 18-month non-parole period.
Jessey Frith
After meeting up in a sex-for-money deal with a woman he met on a social media app, a man was robbed at gunpoint and had his car stolen.
Jessey James Frith used an imitation gun to threaten his victim before making off with his money, wallet and car in late 2021.
The victim had intended to meet with a co-accused woman at her home in Corio.
When the man arrived, the woman introduced Frith as her brother, said she needed $200 for groceries and cigarettes and then told him to come back to the house later that day.
On his way back to the home, the victim saw Frith and the woman walking on a footpath and invited them into his car.
When they all got back to the house, the court was told Frith and the woman became “increasingly aggressive and agitated”.
Frith would eventually point a gun at the victim, demanding he surrender his wallet and drive the pair to a Corio Village ATM, where he was forced to withdraw $100.
Frith robbed the man and then drove off in his car.
He plead guilty to one charge of armed robbery, one charge of possessing a firearm as a prohibited person and one charge of theft of a motor vehicle in County Court in late 2022.
Frith was sentenced to two years imprisonment with a one-year non-parole period, with 358 days marked as already served.
Christopher Alan Collins
Victoria’s own Tinder swindler made off with more than $100,000 from three women he met on dating apps in 2020.
Christopher Alan Collins claimed he was a professional gambler and convinced women on Tinder and Bumble to create sports betting accounts.
A Melbourne court heard how Collins moved the money from the women’s bank accounts into betting sites.
In one instance, he transferred $72,000 to a betting app and then stole her credit card to use at a strip club.
On another occasion, Collins waited for one of his date to fall asleep before he transferred $14,000 from her phone to Sportsbet and TAB.
Formerly a member of the Anakie Football and Netball Club, and Little River Cricket Club, Collins pleaded guilty to 24 charges of theft, fraud, dishonesty offences and breaching bail in 2020 and was jailed for a maximum of 22 months in September 2022.
Byron Kelly
After arriving at his ex-wife’s home in the middle of her Tinder date, tensions flared and Armstrong Creek man Bryon Kelly was quickly embroiled in a fight with an unsuspecting man.
Kelly had been told by his ex-wife to drop off a toy for one of their kids while she was having drinks with a man in March 2022.
Upon request of Kelly’s ex-wife, the victim waited outside the house because she was “concerned” about any potential confrontation between the two men.
Standing in the street near the house, Kelly saw the man, approached him and pushed him towards the house to “talk” with him.
When the victim refused, Kelly dealt a number of punches to his victim, even punching him in the back of the head as he tried to get in his car to drive away.
Kelly pleaded guilty to charges including unlawful assault.
He was convicted and fined $2000.
Saurav Sethia
A Geelong woman had her throat grabbed and was falsely imprisoned by her then-boyfriend, who she met on a dating app, after she discovered photos of escorts on his phone.
Saurav Sethia grabbed and tightened his hands around his now ex-girlfriend’s throat following a “heated argument” about the photos in April 2022.
Managing to escape his grip, the woman then begged Sethia to leave the house.
In response, he grabbed her hands and held them above her head, told her he wasn’t going anywhere and bit her lip.
In a recorded phone call following the incident, Sethia said he felt “guilty” and assured her that aggression was not his “love language”.
The Geelong Magistrates Court heard the pair had also been in a fight in a Melbourne apartment earlier that same month.
Having travelled to Australia for study, Magistrate John Bentley told Sethia that if he had tried to contest his charge of false imprisonment he would likely be jailed and then deported.
He pleaded guilty to the charge and further assault charges and was placed on an 18 month community corrections order in September 2022.
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