LUCKY ESCAPE

Aprofessional Auckland woman is shocked to find the man she recently went on a date with is now accused of killing Grace Millane. The last sighting of Grace was at 9.41pm on December 1, when she entered the CityLife Hotel in central Auckland with the 26-year-old man who is now in custody. He has temporary name suppression but has been revealed as a once-promising athlete who is estranged from his family – including the mother of his child. Police have refused to confirm if Grace met her alleged killer on a dating site, but a 26-year-old woman told Woman’sDay last week that she went to dinner with the accused in August after meeting him on Bumble. “I’m numb. I don’t really know how to process how I feel,” tells the woman. The pair exchanged several “casual, bantering” messages before meeting at upmarket bar Dr Rudi’s at the Viaduct one Friday after work. But after being put off by the man’s alleged “arrogance” and “bragging”, the woman says she had no plans to meet up again. “I didn’t like his personality,” she confides. She says his “delusional claims” included being the general manager and head of human relations at Qantas. He also claimed his father was the former head of Woolworths in Australia and rolling in cash. Neither claim appeared to be true. “I quickly left in an Uber, and messaged him a few days later saying I wasn’t really interested in anything and that I would be wasting his time,” she tells. “And that was that.” Last week, she gave a sworn statement about the August date to detectives investigating the case.