Our History
To understand the project, you have to understand the reality it was born from. The following are public news reports detailing part of the story. They are a stark reminder of how the system can fail to protect, and why a tool that empowers the survivor is not just helpful, but essential.
A stalker made his former partner's life "hell" as he set up fake social media accounts and bombarded her with electronic messages. His alarming campaign began on Christmas Eve, 2021, after she left him.
"She described how the messages made her feel unhappy, and like she was, 'cracking up'," explained the prosecutor. When she attended a counselling session, she spotted the defendant's car outside the building. She saw him bring his left hand to his neck as he made a slashing motion and he pointed at the boot of his car.
A Judge labelled his behaviour towards the victim as "disgraceful, persistent and nasty." "It has caused extreme emotional distress. She has spoken of suicide, serious anxiety, and it has affected her eating and sleeping, and describes you as, 'having made her life hell'," said the Judge.
The court decided the sentence should be a suspended sentence for 14 months, and required him to attend a "building better relationships programme." A restraining order was made to ban contact with the victim for five years.
He breached the restraining order almost immediately. A man contacted his ex-partner within a fortnight of being sentenced for stalking her, a court heard. The prosecutor described him as "someone who doesn't appear to understand the word 'no'."
His victim read out a statement detailing the impact his emotional abuse had on her, which "caused my life to spiral out of control." “I was phoning crisis lines just to stay alive,” she said. “He made me feel dead. I wasn't in control of my own life.”
The perpetrator pleaded guilty to harassment – on breach of a restraining order. The court heard he has previous convictions for harassment in 2004, common assault in 2011, and breaching a non-molestation order in 2015.