Manno family’s devastating first Christmas without Celeste

Aggie Di Mauro still wonders what she could have done to protect her daughter. Meanwhile, Victorian women have been stalked at unprecedented levels.

Murdered woman Celeste Manno’s brother Alessandro and mum Aggie Di Mauro. Picture: Jason Edwards

Celeste Manno’s mother is tortured not only by the killing of her daughter, but what she could have done to prevent it.

She wonders whether she should have bought a German shepherd to guard her home or inspected the backyard every night for predators before going to bed.

On the night Ms Manno was killed, her mum Aggie Di Mauro even considered asking her daughter to sleep in her bedroom with her.

“I thought if I’d ask her to sleep in my room that night, maybe she could have agreed,” Ms Di Mauro said.

Ms Di Mauro with her daughter Celeste.

In the month since her murder, Ms Manno’s mum constantly wonders if this would have been enough to save her.

But one thing she knows for certain is that the justice system failed in its duty to protect her baby girl.

In particular Ms Di Mauro believes advice given by police to her daughter to block her stalker on social media was not helpful.

She believes it may in fact have put her in harm’s way.

Ms Di Mauro has no idea how accused killer Luay Sako knew where her daughter lived, let alone where her bedroom was.

“I never thought he knew where she lived. I thought we were safe at home,” she said.

Every day, she visits her daughter’s resting place and curses the man accused of taking her life.

Ms Di Mauro is furious with what happened to her daughter and is using that fury to fight for tougher stalking laws to ensure no parent has to endure her same nightmare.

She wants high-risk stalkers and violent perpetrators to be monitored by GPS trackers and those who breach intervention orders to face immediate prison time.

And most importantly, she never wants stalking victims to be turned away or have their fears dismissed.

STALKING SOARS TO UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS

Women are being stalked at unprecedented levels as men exploit a wave of spy technology.

Predators are using equipment like vehicle trackers, tiny secret cameras and audio surveillance which are cheap and unregulated.

Easy access to mobile apps which can track women via their phones day and night are also troubling police and domestic violence advocates.

The vulnerability of women to stalkers was again brought into tragic focus last month when Mernda woman Celeste Manno was stabbed to death in her bed, allegedly by an infatuated former workmate who had stalked her.

Celeste Manno.

A Sunday Herald Sun investigation has found:

SEVENTEEN men were charged with 68 cases of illegal use of optical surveillance against women in Victoria in the past year.

ANTI-FAMILY violence bodies have been forced to give women phones so they can’t be tracked.

THERE are calls for a ban on the sale of vehicle trackers to those with no legitimate business reason to own one.

POLICE are often unable or reluctant to deal with stalkers exploiting complex hi-tech surveillance methods.

The 68 optical surveillance offences, all committed by men, in the past 12 months is a 20 per cent increase on three years ago.

Devices were located in suburbs including Avondale Heights, Oakleigh East, Mentone, Malvern, Chadstone, Brunswick, Balaclava, Lalor and Gladstone Park.

In regional Victoria, they were uncovered in Ararat, California Gully, Sebastopol and Garfield.

Police also recorded a total of 1927 stalking incidents in the past year – with almost 60 per cent family-violence related.

Intrusive spyware apps which allow stalkers to hack their victim’s phone and track their location around-the-clock are of increasing concern.

Some of the apps enable remote access to victims’ social media messages, photos, videos, call history, internet usage and real-time GPS data.

They are cheap, easy to download and widely used for sinister means, despite some being marketed as child protection software for parents.

Technology is being weaponised by stalkers.

New research from women’s peak advocacy body WESNET found nearly one in three frontline workers saw victims tracked with GPS apps or devices “all of the time” in 2020 compared to just eight per cent five years ago.

Surveillance camera misuse was seen “all the time” or “often” by 42 per cent of support workers in 2020, up from 16 per cent in 2015.

WESNET distributes 500 “safe phones” nationally each month to women, among them victims who believe they are being bugged.

Chief executive Karen Bentley said technology is frequently “weaponised” by abusers.

“Some women know they are being monitored. It’s a tactic used by abusers to gain power and control so victims feel like they can’t go anywhere because they are being watched,” she said.

“Other women may not realise they are being tracked.”

GPS trackers have been found hidden in prams, handbags, cars and even sown into children’s clothing and toys.

However it’s the technology built into smartphones which is being manipulated the most, Ms Bentley said.

This includes abusers hacking into victims’ iCloud of Google accounts to view their personal information including emails, photos and GPS data.

“It’s just like weaponising a car to run someone over. People with bad intentions can weaponise technology to do harmful things to another person,” Ms Bentley said.

Ms Manno was stabbed to death in her bed, allegedly by an infatuated former workmate who stalked her.

The WESNET research also found only 12.5 per cent of frontline workers believed police “always” took allegations of tech abuse seriously, with a lack of investigative resources and understanding of how it plays into domestic violence listed as the top blame factors.

Ms Bentley said advice by police to some victims that they stay off the phone was not practical in 2020.

Security firm operator David Gray said electronic monitoring, often of women, had surged in recent years.

His company, Asia Pacific Security Group, has been called in by frightened women and found tracking devices in their cars and surveillance gear inside their homes after they did not get sufficient help from “overworked and understaffed” police.

“We are seeing devices such as listening devices, hidden cameras and tracking devices being used during marriage breakups, either for gathering information on the other party or to gain an advantage in property or child custody disputes,” Mr Gray said.

Phillip Island mum Samantha Fraser feared she was being secretly surveilled by her estranged husband, Adrian Basham, before he allegedly murdered her in 2018.

Samantha Fraser found dead at her Phillip Island home

Adrian Basham.

A court last year heard she believed her “controlling” and “manipulative” former husband had set up security cameras in her home and was tapping her phone.

Cybersecurity expert Simon Smith said some woman are desperately scared but don’t get the help they need.

“Police just tell them to close their accounts down or block the person and ‘we can’t help you’. The onus is then put on the victim to hire someone like me to get proof,” he said.

“It’s not good enough. Police must understand it’s a crime.”

A Victoria Police spokeswoman did not respond to concerns related to the enforcement of tech abuse offenders.

However she said social media and tracking apps and devices were being increasingly used to control and abuse victims, and police understood the lasting impacts on victims.

“Our priority is to always put immediate safety measures in place to protect victims from further harm,” the spokeswoman said.

A State Government spokeswoman said police treated stalking “extremely seriously” and there were more than 415 frontline and specialist family violence police in Victoria.

Training developed by the force’s Centre for Family Violence and delivered statewide by family violence training officers was addressing the complexities of stalking and technology-based abuse.

“Eighty officers are now working across cybercrime and the Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team, to assist in e-crime investigations and surveillance and ensure they stay at the forefront of emerging trends; act as interpreters between technology and policing for other police areas; and investigate serious crimes committed in the online space,” the spokeswoman said.