But dating can be a dangerous business, and with dating moving online, and now onto apps, like Tinder and Grindr, it’s becoming more perilous than ever. Crimes involving dating apps have risen sevenfold in the past 2 years, with more than 400 offenses reported to police last year, including asaaults, rape, child sex grooming, and even murder. How safe is looking for love online? Murder on the Internet I, Channel 5 2017
In December 2015, 26-year-old Carl Langdell began exchanging messages with 23-year-old Katie Locke via plentyoffish.com. ibid.
‘There was nothing in any of it that would make him seem like a monster.’ ibid. comment
Carl Langdell strangled Katie Locke until she was dead before taking photos on his phone. ibid. caption
On 13th September 2015, 25-year-old forklift driver, Jack Taylor, logged onto Grindr from his home in Dagenham. Just before 2 a.m. Jack was contacted by Stephen Port, who was less than 4 miles away in Barking. He thought he was communicating with a young, athletic gay man, but unbeknown to him, Stephen Port was a 41-year-old serial killer who wore wigs and makeup to lure in young victims. ibid.
His [Jack] body was propped against a churchyard wall, his shirt was pulled up over his belly, no mobile phone was present. He was found with a syringe and plastic bottle containing the liquid GBL, that can be transformed into GHB, a common drug on the gay scene … This was Port’s 4th murder victim in 15 months. ibid.
Luring people away from the [dating] sites was a tactic used by serial rapist Jason Lawrence. Lawrence used two pictureless profiles, Keepitstraighttoday and Straightmanlokking to contact several thousand women on Match.com. ibid.
In April 2018 a teenage girl from Surrey was stabbed multiple times by American teenager, Shane Coffey. She’d met him on an online gaming site. Although they hadn’t actually met in person, they’d ben corresponding online for four years. ibid.
Shane Coffey was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted murder the teenage girl and wounding with intent to cause GBH against her brother. ibid. caption
On 31st October 2015, 15-year-old Leicestershire schoolgirl Kayleigh Hayward received a Facebook message from unemployed 27-year-old Luke Harlow. After exchanging more than 2,600 messages over 13 days, Kayleigh agreed to stay at Harlow’s flat in Ibstock, where she was introduced to 28-year-old landscape gardener Stephen Beadman, the man who raped and murdered her. Murder on the Internet II
‘He invited Beadman back to a flat where he was with an underage girl to party with the two of them. There was a good deal of showing off with, Look what I’ve got.’ ibid. comment
Harlow had contacted 15-year-old Kayleigh via Facebook just 13 days before. ibid.
Police quickly discovered he was in fact a serial groomer. ibid.
He also admitted to grooming two other underage girls. ibid.
The police then arrested Beadman who had fresh facial injuries which raised suspicion. ibid.
Serving police officer PC Gordon Semple left a meeting at the Shangri-La Hotel, and logged on to the gay dating app Grindr. Ubeknownst to him, he responded to an invitation to a sex party from a man who would brutally murder him.
Days later his [Semple’s] severed foot was found floating in the River Thames. ibid.
The man in police custody is 51-year-old Italian, Stefano Brizzi. Brizzi was an openly gay successful computer programmer … He contracted HIV and Hepatitis C, a diagnosis he referred to as his death sentence. ibid.
In 2015 he left Morgan Stanley after developing an addiction to crystal meth, and would spiral out of control as he delved into the world of chemsex. ibid.
Gordon’s lungs had been flushed down the toilet while parts of his spine and hand were found in bin bags, and more chillingly, parts of him were identified in the oven, in cooking pots, and on chopsticks in Brizzi’s kitchen. ibid.
One of Semple’s ribs was found in the kitchen bin with bite marks that matched Brizzi’s lower teeth. ibid.
Stefano Brizzi guilty of murder [not manslaughter] by a majority of 10 to 2. ibid.
In Fberuary 2017, convicted murderer Stefano Brizzi was found dead in his cell at HMP Belmarsh. ibid.
One of those looking for love online was 44-year-old Usha Patel, a single mum and full-time carer for her young autistic son. And it was on oasis.com where 35-year-old Miles Donnelly captured her heart. ibid.
Donna beat Usha around the head, strangled her, and as she lay dying, stabbed her in the stomach 13 times with a bread knife. ibid.