Ex-girlfriends of cricketer Michael Slater reveal harrowing physical & emotional torment
Michael Slater’s ex revealed abusive emails where he threatened to take her down, blaming her for his deteriorating mental health.
Victoria
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A Victorian woman who was in a relationship with disgraced cricketer Michael Slater has broken her silence on his harrowing and vile abusive treatment of her.
The mother of three, who doesn’t want to be identified, said Slater pulled her hair and threw her to the ground, threatened to publish personal images without her consent in an act of revenge porn, stalked her and bombarded her with abusive messages from various burner phones.
He also repeatedly threatened to kill himself if she broke up with him or didn’t get back together with him once they separated.
The pair had been friends prior to commencing a relationship in 2016.
Much of the most threatening and abusive behaviour took place after their relationship ended.
On one occasion police were called to her house after Slater became intoxicated at a sporting event.
He waited in an alleyway behind her house, tried to stop her from leaving her home and was arrested by police.
“On another occasion he put a belt around his neck and said he would string it from above the bed if I didn’t resume the relationship,” the woman said.
He also physically assaulted her on one occasion, pulling her hair and throwing her to the ground, she said.
The pair did not live together as the woman was in Melbourne and Slater lived in Sydney.
“I was at times fearful for my physical safety and endured constant emotional and psychological abuse,” she said.
After the relationship ended, she was forced to get Slater to sign a legal deed agreeing not to publish intimate images that had been taken without her knowledge or consent.
“He’s a narcissist who gaslights, manipulates and has coercive control over his victims. He has abused multiple women … the term ‘serial abuser’ should be used to describe him,” she said.
It comes as the Herald Sun obtained a copy of an AVO of another of Slater’s former partners, from Sydney, which states that he controlled her, sent her hundreds of text messages in a row, abused her and caused her to be fearful of her safety.
He also went through that ex-partner’s garbage for proof she was cheating on him and cut her off from friends and family, the AVO against him reveals.
The Victorian woman said the former cricketer, who is believed to be in a Sydney mental health facility again after breaching bail conditions, is manipulating the system by using mental health grounds as an excuse for his behaviour.
“His star status seems to protect him and provide preferential treatment or lenience,” she said.
She said she was speaking out because Slater’s treatment and punishments were not working, and she, and other women, continued to fear for their safety and that of other women he might be in contact with.
The woman said she was also tired of seeing him referred to as a “legend cricketer” or “hero”.
“The days of him being referred to as a legend are long gone,” she said.
“Labelling him a legend and star creates a flattering picture and places him on a pedestal when in real terms he is a serial offender who abuses women and is continuing to reoffend without sufficient consequence … because of his ‘status’ and public profile.”
The woman was also forced to take out a legally enforceable deed that required Slater to destroy any intimate content he had taken without her knowledge or consent and agreed not to contact her friends and family or harass or menace her.
“He took distressing and disturbing videos and photos of me unbeknownst to me,” she said. “It was not with my consent. “He even told me he’d send it to my children, mother and friends.”
Since 2021, Slater has faced multiple assault, intimidation and harassment charges, but has repeatedly avoided jail and has instead been placed on bail on mental health grounds.
He has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, alcohol addiction, borderline personality disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Slater has repeatedly broken bail conditions that barred him from using alcohol or drugs and stopped him from contacting a number of people who have domestic violence orders against him.
“I don’t believe for a moment that the ‘punishment’ fits the crime nor (is it) a deterrent to stop breaching orders and offending,” the woman said.
“The medical treatment clearly isn’t sufficient, either, and the system is broken.”
In the aftermath of their break-up, emails and texts seen by the Herald Sun show Slater telling her his behaviour is all her fault.
“I am going to do my best to make you feel my pain,” one message warned.
“I’m now completely over you and going to bring you down. No one deserves the treatment I’ve received,” another said.
“You’ve (sic) f---ed and a piece of dog shit,” he said in a third.
He also complained to her “you have done this to me” and “you’re (sic) treatment of me is just sick and I feel like a worthless piece of shit”.
On one occasion Slater even sent her a message from an email address purporting to be from Lifeline and asking her to contact him.
He also put an app on her phone which he used to track her.
“He used it to abuse me. He’d say I know you were longer than you said you were going to be,” she told the Herald Sun.
“I was always fearful of him losing his job and being without structure or purpose.
“He was very possessive, always wanting me to justify my whereabouts. I felt fortunate to live in another state.”
A statement made to Waverley Police Station on October 19, 2021, by the woman about her turbulent three-year relationship details his controlling and jealous nature.
They would often fight and then break up, then get back together.
In March 2021, she moved out of their house.
Months later, they began communicating again over the sale of the property they jointly owned but did not move back in together.
“After coming back into my life Michael continued his controlling and paranoid behaviours and is becoming worse (sic),” the AVO said.
She said she would regularly wake up to more than 100 text messages, was cut off from her friends and found it hard to work because of his jealousy and possessiveness.
Things came to a head on October 11, 2021, when he came over to interrogate her about who she was with the night before, as he believed she was with another man.
“He was yelling at me and calling me names,” the AVO said.
He searched her room for evidence, demanded she show him security camera vision and even went through the garbage to find evidence of what she had for breakfast.
He then told her: “I am going out to the garage to hang myself”.
“ … he threatens to harm himself so often that I have stopped responding to it as I know it’s a tactic he uses to control and blackmail me,” the AVO stated.
“I don’t want Michael to know when I am home by myself. I am fearful that Michael will turn up to my new address. I fear he may escalate and become physically violent. I am terrified that my children would be witness to a future domestic violence incident with Michael.
“I have also changed the locks on my house to prevent Michael from entering the house and installed security cameras,” it read.
The woman was given an AVO requiring him not to assault, threaten, stalk, harass or intimidate, approach or contact her or go within 100m of places where she worked or lived.
Breaking the order could lead to a $5500 fine and a jail term of up to two years.
He was ordered to attend court on November 11, 2021, and then had a hearing in April 2022 where the AVO was granted for five years due to the seriousness of the domestic violence.
He has broken the order, but he has repeatedly avoided jail and has instead received inpatient mental health treatment.
In April, a judge from Waverley Local Court said he believed in treating the cause, and not the consequences, of crime.
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