Exposing the Geelong residents using dating apps to target their victims
Ever had a really bad date? For some Geelong residents, the person they met abused, stole and sexually assaulted them. We look at the criminals behind those horror stories.
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For a terrifying hour-and-a-half, a man was injected with a needle, assaulted, and threatened with fire while bound and gagged. He had only just met his violent abuser on a dating app.
In sentencing Geelong woman Sarah Stanford in the County Court of Victoria for the brutal assault of a man she lured into her home, Judge Geoffrey Chettle said it was the “ultimate terror” and something he had never seen in his 20-year-plus career.
The victim said his life since has “changed forever”.
“When I leave my home, I’m in fear and constantly looking over my shoulder,” the man, who remains unnamed, told the court.
Standford is just one of ten Geelong residents in the last two years who committed a crime after coming into contact with their victim on a dating app or website in one form or another.
Drugged-up crook Thomas Samas used the dating app Grindr, a site for LGBTQ+ people, to trick his victim into letting him enter his home before he robbed and stole his car at knifepoint.
Jilted man Byron Kelly became enraged when his ex-wife invited a Tinder date to her home and launched a vicious assault.
Highton man Jake Taberner used the website Airtasker like a dating platform after first using the app to help a woman fix a printer. Before long, he was sending her sexually explicit images.
Taberner returned to her home without invitation and sexually assaulted her, leaving her spending “a lot of time being scared”.
A spokesperson with Victoria Police said users must understand “the internet isn’t the same as a face-to-face environment as you can’t be sure the person you are speaking to is who they say they are”.
They added that with the evolution of technology, offenders were finding it easier than ever to target a wide range of people online.
Information like full names, addresses, contact details and bank details should never be shared online, police said.
Once users do decide to meet in person, the spokesperson cautioned them about “trusting your doubts about prospective dates”.
“Police recommend that online users should record details of inappropriate activity such as information posted, date, time, email addresses and website for reporting purposes.
“Police take reports of cybercrime extremely seriously and are committed to investigating and prosecuting offenders where criminal offences are detected,” the spokesperson said.
This comes as NewsCorp-owned The Daily Telegraph launched the Swipe Them Out Campaign to hold dating apps accountable for the people they allow without restrictions onto their platforms.
The Daily Telegraph found the three major dating platforms – Tinder, Bumble and Hinge – do not require police checks for users.
The Australian Institute of Criminology released a report late last year which found a third of dating app users have been the victim of in-person sexual violence by someone they met online.
Three-quarters were also subjected to online sexual harassment from dating app users, including receiving sexually explicit images without consent or feeling coerced into sending their own.
eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said there needed to be “more action from dating apps to enhance online safety for Australians”.
“Our online and offline lives have never been more intertwined than they are today and this increases the potential for online harm to spill over into real world harm,” Commissioner Grant said.
“We welcome the opportunity to work in partnership with a range of experts and stakeholders to identify what more needs to be done to tackle these issues.”
DATING APP CROOKS NAMED
JESSEY FRITH
A Geelong man and woman lured their victim online with a sex-for-money deal so they could rob him at gunpoint.
The victim was forced to hand over his wallet and withdraw cash from an ATM at Corio Village when Jessey Frith pulled an imitation gun on him and threatened to shoot him in the knee.
Frith, 23, pleaded 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 the County Court in December 2022.
A co-accused woman met the victim on an app in December 2021 and set up an arrangement where she would have sexual intercourse with him in exchange for money.
The same day, the woman met the victim at her Corio home and introduced Frith to him as her brother.
BYRON KELLY
An Armstrong Creek father of two assaulted a man who was on a Tinder date with his wife, a court heard in July 2022.
Byron Kelly appeared at the Geelong Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to the unlawful assault of the Tinder date in March.
The court heard the victim attended Kelly’s ex-wife’s home in Armstrong Creek and was having drinks, when Kelly was called over to drop off a toy that his young child had lost.
Despite the victim telling Kelly that he was “not trying to replace you”, Kelly became aggressive and punched him with a clenched fist.
Kelly also sucker punched the victim in the right arm and threw a further five or six punches while the man was on the phone.
NICHOLAS JAZUBZIK
A Geelong man took a woman he’d met online on a first date that quickly turned into a crime spree.
Despite meeting the woman for the first time that day, Nicholas Jazubzik, 38, ferried her across Geelong where he committed a number of offences using another man’s money.
The Geelong Magistrates Court heard in October 2022 that Jazubzik went to the Waurn Pons Shopping Centre to pick up his date’s takeaway food order but instead returned carrying a black backpack he stole from a Mad Mex employee.
Jazubzik, who pleaded guilty to theft and handling proceeds of crime, had snuck into a store room and stolen a set of keys he then used to gain access to the Mad Mex storeroom.
As the woman watched on, Jazubzik stole a wallet from inside a car.
JAKE TABERNER
A Highton man went to the home of an OnlyFans content creator he had met online and sexually assaulted her.
Jake Taberner, 25, pleaded guilty to assault, sexual assault and driving offences in the Geelong Magistrates Court in August 2022.
In August 2021, after fixing the woman’s printer, Taberner reached out to the woman over the Airtasker app and asked about her night.
He then showed up at her door, walked into her house and moved to touch her breasts.
After he left, Taberner sent her a message on the app that read, “yeah sorry, not very smooth. I didn’t mean to be so forward” and later sent another sexually explicit message.
SAURAV SETHIA
A man launched a vicious and “abhorrent” attack on a woman he met on a dating app, a court heard in September 2022.
Saurav Sethia, 23, who now lives in Melbourne and has links to Waurn Ponds, faced the Geelong Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and assault charges.
In April 2022, Sethia got into a “heated argument” with the woman over pictures of escorts she found on his phone.
Sethia grabbed her throat and squeezed for about six seconds.
The victim said she feared for her life and tried to push Sethia away from her but he only “tightened his hands around her throat”.
SARAH STANDFORD
A woman held a man captive and gagged in her Whittington home while injecting him with a needle to extort him for money.
Sarah Standford, 23, fronted the Geelong County Court in January 2022 and pleaded guilty to extortion, robbery, common assault and false imprisonment after luring the man to her home using a dating app in September 2019.
Judge Geoffrey Chettle said the victim had been “subjected to the ultimate terror” throughout the hours-long ordeal.
“In my 20-odd years, I don’t think I’ve seen something as bizarre, and in some places scary, as this,” Judge Chettle said.
The pair arranged to meet, with Standford demanding he bring Hungry Jacks and drugs, but later abused him when he didn’t.
KEVIN BRAUNTON
In addition to a terrifying stalking campaign that included false email addresses from escort services, a Moolap man signed a woman up to a dating site and posted her home address.
Kevin Braunton, 50, targeted his ex-partner with “cruel persistent” threats he was going to share her intimate images with colleagues and friends before he showed up at her home with a box cutter, the Geelong Magistrates Court heard in November 2022.
In early September 2022, Braunton created a dating profile on Plenty of Fish that included the woman’s address and contact details.
The stalking came to a terrifying end when the woman heard noises at the front of their Curlewis home and looked up to find Braunton, who pleaded guilty to the stalking offences.
CHRISTOPHER ALAN COLLINS
Victoria’s very own Tinder swindler stole tens of thousands of dollars from unsuspecting women in the middle of wooing them on dates just three weeks after finishing a court order for similar offending.
Christopher Alan Collins faced the Melbourne Magistrates Court in June 2022 where he was questioned over his rehabilitation.
The Little River Cricket Club junior mentor pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including theft, fraud and dishonesty.
The court heard the love rat, who went by ‘CJ’ on Tinder and ‘Happy’ on Bumble, would boast to his dates that he was a professional gambler before convincing them to open betting accounts so he could earn them winnings with “sure bets”.
But what they didn’t know is that he had a serious gambling addiction and had been banned from most betting sites.
CHRISTOPHER TOLJ
A Geelong tradie was convicted in June 2021 for robbing a man at gunpoint after the victim sent a penis photo to his girlfriend.
Christopher Tolj, of Wandana Heights, pleaded guilty to armed robbery over an early morning incident in Ocean Grove in 2020.
The County Court heard the 30-year-old victim was lured to the car park of the Ocean Grove Hotel just hours after sending a photo of his penis to Tolj’s girlfriend on a dating app.
The message infuriated Tolj and he drove to Ocean Grove with three others to confront the victim, who was previously unknown to them.
At the scene, Tolj armed himself with a long-arm firearm that was in the boot of his car.
THOMAS SAMAS
A drugged-up crook who used Grindr to lure a man into a frightening armed robbery at Grovedale faced court in October 2021.
Thomas Samas, 23, was sentenced at Melbourne’s County Court after using Grindr, an online dating application, to arrange a meeting with his would-be victim in December 2018.
The court heard the pair traded “selfies” before the victim, 20, drove to St Leonards to collect Samas.
Shortly after arriving, Samas revealed a kitchen knife and said, “I am not going to hurt you, I am taking your car”.
He then walked outside and fled with the victim’s Suzuki Swift.
Originally published as Exposing the Geelong residents using dating apps to target their victims
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