Associated Incidents
When Hannah Grundy presented police with hundreds of doctored, pornographic photos and violent rape threats against her in February 2022, she was convinced she was the victim of a "devastating" crime.
The high school science teacher and her partner, Kris Ventura, had been alerted the night before to a forum titled "The Destruction of Hannah" featuring deepfakes of Ms Grundy, and a number of her female friends. After combing through the website, the couple came to the disturbing conclusion that the person behind the website was one of their "closest" friends, Andrew Hayler.
"Andy was a safe person to me ... He was the guy who would message me to make sure I'd gotten home safe after we'd gone out for a couple of drinks," Ms Grundy, who shared her experience on Monday's Australian Story, told news.com.au.
"And I still have this message that he sent me, checking in that I'd gotten home (safe), when he was posting these things on the site at the same time. It is shocking to know that someone can slip under your radar so easily, and they can just pretend to be such a good person."
She and Mr Ventura took their suspicion of Hayler to officers at Newtown Police Station the next day, armed with a trove of evidence against him and the belief that "something would happen".
"We were so naive that we just assumed that that's how justice gets served," Ms Grundy said.