The Night Driver podcast: Violent stalker ‘a link to abduction’

A bartender was tracked to her home by a stalker before he sexually assaulted her housemate in a crime police fear may be linked to Jan­ine Vaughan’s abduction and murder.

Janine Vaughan.

A female bartender was tracked to her home by a violent stalker before he sexually assaulted her housemate in a crime police fear may be linked to Jan­ine Vaughan’s abduction and murder.

Hayley Stewart was 21 and working behind the bar of Bathurst’s notorious Metro Tavern when she was targeted by the anonymous stalker, just a year before Janine vanished outside the venue after a night on the town with friends in December 2001.

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She says she had just finished a late shift at the country pub, in the NSW central tablelands, three hours west of Sydney when the terrifying ordeal unfolded.

“I worked there for about a year … and I would often do those graveyard shifts,” she tells The Night Driver — an investigative podcast by The Australian re-­examining the murky details around Janine’s death. “(The owners) Mal and Trevor would shout us a beer or whatever, and then we’d all just go home.”

Hayley had decided against driving to work that night but lived only a few minutes’ walk away. So after the staff drinks ended, she chose to stroll home alone in the early homes of the morning just before sunrise.

Having forgotten her house keys, Hayley says she walked around the back of her home and entered through the back door, which was often left unlocked.

She did not stay home long. After collecting a few things, she exited through the front door and headed to a friend’s house.

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Little did she know she had just unwittingly evaded the stalker who had followed her home and had crept in through the back door. It was about 6am and the only other person inside was one of Hayley’s housemates, another young woman, who was fast asleep in her bedroom.

“So he’s come in and looked all around the house and he’s gone into her bedroom and realised that she was the only one there,” she tells The Night Driver.

“That’s when he jumped on top of this flatmate of mine and said, ‘Where’s your mate from the tavern? Where’s she hiding because I just saw her walk in the back door.’”

Hayley says the stalker then smothered her friend’s face with a pillow inside her darkened room and began to sexually assault her.

Thinking quickly, the housemate did what she could to fend off the attack, telling the stalker that she was on her period.

“He just kind of backed off and ended up just walking out the door,” Hayley says.

Years after the attack Hayley was contacted by homicide detectives investigating Janine’s murder and interviewed about the incident. She counts herself lucky that nothing more sinister happened that night. Like Hayley, Janine had just left the Metro Tavern when she was targeted by a suspected stalker.

She had been at her most vulnerable when she exited the pub a ­little before 4am — she had lost her handbag inside the hotel and, along with it, her house keys, money and ­mobile phone.

After deciding to head to The Oxford pub a couple of blocks away with a couple of friends to see whether it was still open, the 31-year-old clothing store manager marched on ahead though the pre-dawn rain and was alone by the time a small red car pulled up behind her a few hundred ­metres from the Metro Tavern.

After Janine turned to look at the vehicle, the passenger door opened; Janine approached and silently got in.

She was never seen again.

Successive investigations, a coronial inquest and a Police Integrity Commission inquiry have concluded that she was abducted and murdered but the identity of the red car’s driver remains unknown and her remains have never been found.

For Hayley, Janine’s dis­appearance has been a constant reminder over the past two decades of just how close she may have come to also falling victim to a violent stalker.

“Bloody creepy,” she says.