Single woman whose Tinder date held a knife to her throat after sex reveals the terrifying words he spoke when she tried to escape - and says the dating app did 'nothing' when she reported her ordeal
A young woman has recalled the terrifying moment an obese Tinder creep held a knife to her throat when she tried to flee his home.
Beth is among several victims who bravely spoke out about their horror experiences with men they'd met online as part of an investigation into how dating apps respond to reports of abuse.
She exchanged messages with a potential suitor she matched with Tinder on and off for six months before he asked her to come over to his house.
The first impression she had of him was he appeared a lot larger and less attractive than his Tinder profile photos.
She has a vivid recollection of what happened next as he immediately led her to the bedroom.
'We then started to have sex, and progressively it got rougher as it went on,' she told ABC's Four Corners.
'There was a moment in the sex where he was pushing my head so far into the bed that my glasses were coming up to my face and I felt like they were about to break. And that was when I just asked to stop.'
She said she'll never forget the man's chilling reply.
'He looked down on me, and he just said straight-faced to me, 'Well, you're not allowed to leave until I c***,' Beth recalled.
'In that moment, it was really like... I think I was just shocked, and it was a real moment where I felt like I didn't have any options.'
After the pair finished having sex, Beth quickly got dressed so she could escape but then spotted a very large knife on the kitchen table.
'He moved the knife close to my neck, and then just started laughing. I felt like I was in some real serious trouble and I was really helpless in that situation because he was so much bigger than me,' she said.
Beth said she reported her horrifying ordeal to Tinder, which said they investigate and get back to her 'There was no follow up, there was no nothing,' she said (stock image)
Beth managed to escape and ran to her car, where she immediately burst into hysterical sobs.
She later used the Tinder app's function to report the man for sexual assault and received an automated response saying the company would look into it and get back to her.
Beth never heard back from Tinder.
'There was no follow up, there was no nothing,' she said.
But she isn't the only young woman who has had a bad experience with men they've met through dating apps.
Beth said she was raped and then threatened with a large knife by a man she'd matched on dating app Tinder six months earlier
Emily, who was raped three times in one morning by a man she met on Tinder, said it took several women complaining of his predatory behaviour for his account to banned.
She revealed how she had second thoughts about the man - who had a photo showing him posing for a racy firefighters calendar - after he asked her to send him explicit photos of herself.
But after the 'incredibly buff' Tinder match reassured her, she agreed to go to his home where he raped her so forcefully she bled for days after the attack.
'It wasn't something that I wanted. It wasn't something that I said he could do. He just started to rape me,' she told the program.
Emily said halfway through the horrific attack her rapist held her down so he could take photos of her.
'He kept his hand holding me down as I tried to squirm and get out of the camera lens,' she said.
Emily later tried to report the man to Tinder, but was just given an automated response saying: 'Thanks for submitting'.
She said Tinder took action to delete his account only after she messaged other women he met on the app and had harassed over text message.
The firefighter had asked some of the women to send them naked photos of themselves on the app, responding 'f**k off then mutt' when they declined.
Another woman, Brooke, told the joint Triple j Hack and Four Corners investigation she was raped on a car backseat in secluded bushland on her third date with a man she met on Tinder.
When she went to report the attack, she said she couldn't find any of their chat history because he had unmatched her.
'It was completely heart-wrenching because there was no proof that we had even spoke to each other,' she said.
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith told Four Corners dating app companies were frequently less than helpful when contacted as part of sexual assault investigations.
'There's a contact email and they're supposed to get back to us, there's always difficulties with that process,' he told the program.
'Some of the big social media operators have what's called liaison officers and we work with those. They tend to be offshore.'
'It's always difficult to get information.'
Young Australian woman Emily was horrifically raped three times over the course of a Tinder date with a firefighter she met on the app
Former employees of Match Group, which operates Tinder, told the investigation they were too under-resourced to deal with the deluge of sexual assault complaints they received.
Match Group told the ABC they were 'outraged singles anywhere may experience fear, discomfort, or worse when looking to meet someone special'.
Her rapist had sent harassing messages to other women he met on the dating app
'We will always work to improve our systems to make sure everyone on our apps feels respected and safe,' the company said in a statement.
Tinder told Daily Mail Australia they have been rolling out improvements to their app to enhance user safety - including a 'photo verification' feature to ensure users are who they say they are.
In May 2019, New Zealander Glenn Antony Dylan Hartland was sentenced to 14 years and nine months in jail over three shocking rapes of women he met on the app.
Hartland raped three women in their homes between 2014 and 2016 after they told him they no longer wanted to see him and indecently assaulted a fourth woman by ripping off her underwear after he followed her into a toilet cubicle at a Melbourne pub when she told him she wanted to go home.
The attacks occurred in the Melbourne suburbs of South Yarra, Elwood, St Kilda and Prahran.
After one 2014 rape, the court heard Hartland told the woman: 'You can call that the Monica Lewinsky dress.'
A judge described Hartland as being self-obsessed, with a 'bleak misogyny' that was driven by a personality disorder, which saw him use Tinder to lure women into his clutches.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
NSW Domestic Violence Line (1800 65 64 63)