Online dating risks: Australia’s worst predators

These are some of our most disturbing cases where online dates in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and South Australia have turned into an unforgettable nightmare. WARNING: GRAPHIC

As the popularity of online dating soars, the dangers for those making themselves vulnerable to strangers increase.

The attack on an Australian woman in Ibiza earlier this month has highlighted the potential risks of dating apps.

Karen Sadler, from Perth, swiped right on the Tinder profile of a handsome man named Alain, who described himself as a lawyer, while on the Spanish island of Ibiza.

After they had dinner, she was preparing to leave his villa by taxi when he violently attacked her, punching her in the head and knocking her out.

Karen Sadler was the victim of a horrific attack on a Tinder date.

Miraculously, Ms Sadler was rescued by the taxi driver who rushed her to the hospital.

But not everyone has been so lucky.

Here are some of Australia’s most disturbing cases where online dates have turned into a person’s worst nightmare.

GLENN HARTLAND

Narcissistic sexual predator Glenn Hartland — dubbed the Tinder rapist — preyed on vulnerable women during a two-year reign of terror in Melbourne.

Hartland, 44, raped three women and sexually assaulted another between 2014 and 2016.

Tinder rapist Glenn Hartland enters the County Court in Melbourne. Picture: Mark Stewart

In one case, he raped a former girlfriend when he went to her house to pick up jeans he had left there — all while his fiancee waited in the car outside.

He also forced another woman he was dating into a cubicle of a toilet at a St Kilda pub where he indecently assaulted her

One of his victims was so traumatised by his actions that she took her life in February.

He was locked up for at least 11 years last May with a judge saying the community must be protected from him.

RATU BOSE

He claimed to be a former member of the French military.

But Melbourne man Ratu Bose was a vile sexual predator who made the false claims of being a sniper to win over women he met on Tinder.

Bose, 33, raped two women he met on the dating app between April 2016 and January 2017.

Ratu Bose after falsely presented himself as an “international man of mystery”. Picture: AAP

He had been on bail for the rape of the first woman at the time he raped his second victim.

Earlier this month, Bose was sentenced by the County Court to a total of 12 years and six months.

CALLUM HAGGERTY

In Brisbane, serial predator Callum Haggerty attacked three women he met through an online dating site.

Haggerty, 28, pleaded guilty to five counts of rape as well as two counts of fraud and assault

The court heard Haggerty told one of his victims to “suck it up”

While his lawyers said he was remorseful the judge described the offending as “despicable”

Haggerty was arrested and while on bail he attacked a sex worker who he had met online.

Callum Joseph Haggarty outside court.

The court heard Haggerty misrepresented himself online as wealthy and defrauded multiple women of $50,000 by duping them into entering contracts for items like phones and then failed to pay them back.

Haggerty will serve 80 per cent of his 10-year sentence behind bars before being eligible to apply for parole.

PAUL LAMBERT

Port Macquarie doctor Angela Jay, 28, was stabbed 11 times and doused in petrol by a man she met on Tinder.

Her calm head, as she crawled in agony to the neighbours and instructed them how to stop her bleeding out, is all that saved her.

Dr Angela Jay was stabbed and doused in petrol by a man she met on Tinder. Picture: John Appleyard

Paul Lambert, a 36-year-old deranged stalker from Brisbane, was shot dead by police.

It turned out that Lambert, who had changed his name from Paul Scales, had a history of terrorising women and was a self-described “psychopath”.

NZ TOURIST RAPED IN SYDNEY

The case of a New Zealand woman allegedly gang-raped in Sydney prompted a warning to online daters from police last October.

The 28-year-old woman had flown to Sydney from New Zealand for business when she decided to meet up with a man she initially met through the Tinder.

A tourist from New Zealand was allegedly gang-raped afer meeing up with a Tinder datee. Picture: Craig Greenhill

The woman told police she met the man at a Kings Cross restaurant before going with him to a bar in Martin Place.

After this a number of the man’s friends showed up.

“Later on that night, the woman began to feel dizzy and numb, and lost her bearings,” a NSW Police spokesman said.

The woman said she later found herself at a property and had no idea where she was. A number of men then sexually assaulted her. She managed to leave the property and contracted police.

Detective Inspector Michael Haddow said: “The vast majority of people who use dating websites and apps do so for the right reasons, but there are a number of sexual predators out there who use modern technology to find potential victims.”

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BRUCE DALE BRADY

In 2008, Adelaide man Bruce Dale Brady was jailed for ten years over a terrifying 13-hour attack on a woman he met through a personals ad.

In sentencing, South Australian District Court Judge Rauf Soulio said the drug and porn-fuelled attack was humiliating and degrading and such violence against women would not be tolerated.

Brady was found guilty of six counts of rape after he went to his victim’s house in April 2008 armed with “various apparatuses” and pornographic DVDs intending to rape her.

Justice Soulio said the sexual violence had profoundly left the victim’s self-esteem shattered.