HOW TO CATCH THOSE CATFISH
THE CONSTANT BATTLE TO KEEP CHILDREN SAFE FROM THOSE MONSTERS LURKING ON THE WEB
Amother whose daughter was murdered by a pedophile posing as an 18-year-old online love interest has joined other grieving families in demanding national laws targeting catfishing.
Carly Ryan was just 15 when Gary Francis Newman, who had more than 200 fake online identities, lured the teen to a deserted beach where he bashed and choked her, leaving her to drown.
The 50-year-old Victorian IT worker had posed as a musician named Brandon Kane before striking up an online relationship with Carly.
“My daughter was murdered by an online predator. It was the first crime of its type in Australia,” Carly’s devastated mother Sonya Ryan said.
“(But) in the groundless grief of losing my girl, I knew I had to do something to help prevent the same suffering happening to another innocent child.”
Since her daughter’s death in 2007, during a time when no one really understood how dangerous the internet could be, Ms Ryan turned her grief into action. In 2017, Carly’s Law was passed, giving police power to intervene before predators have a chance to act by making it a criminal offence for adults to lie to a child online with the intent of causing them harm.
And while
“catfishing” – where a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity to trick someone online – was not a term in 2007, Ms Ryan said that was what happened to her daughter.
“Laws must be proactive and preventive … people need to be held responsible for their actions online just as we are held accountable for our actions offline,” she said. “The consequences of those harmful behaviours are the same. I believe Carly’s Law could be used or amended to be used in criminal cases of this type.”
Professor Marilyn McMahon from the
Deakin Law School said while there was no specific crime of catfishing in
Australia, some of the behaviours involved in the practice may involve some offences, including stalking and financial fraud.
“The development of online and text communications has, however, profoundly increased the opportunity for, and levels of, deceptive activity,” Professor McMahon said.
But in catfishing cases like Renae Marsden, where it involved psychological and emotional abuse or manipulation, it can be much more difficult to obtain convictions.
In 2013, Ms Marsden, 20, took her own life after falling for the fake online persona “Brayden Spiteri”. Masquerading as Brayden – in thousands of messages – was Ms Marsden’s high school friend Camila Zeidan.
At the inquest into her death, Deputy State
Coroner Elaine Truscott fell short of saying the act of catfishing should be illegal, adding that further examination was required.
Ms Marsden’s distraught parents Mark and Teresa Marsden posted a petition on change.org last month, supporting their push to have people who impersonate others online to legally be held to account.
“How can we as a society stand back and watch someone mentally, emotionally, and psychologically destroy another person and not be held accountable under any jurisdiction or law?” Mr Marsden said.
NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman said coercive control laws – specifically targeting humiliation, intimidation, financial abuse and constant criticism – would be able to outlaw catfishing.
However, Professor McMahon said it would be difficult to use these laws in catfishing cases.
“Laws criminalising coercive control only apply to particular intimate relationships, typically partners, ex-partners, people living together,” she said.
Federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the government’s new Online Safety Act, which comes into force in January, would “strengthen the hand” of the eSafety Commissioner in a range of areas, including cyber abuse, which could capture elements of catfishing.
The government is now taking submissions from the public about catfishing and any other threats to online safety, and what steps platforms should take to address these harms.
Catfishing features in the new upcoming eight-part podcast Eye
Spy, which delves into the world of private investigators.
The guns for hire reveal fascinating and hair-raising cases, from catching cheaters to being jailed in foreign countries while rescuing abducted children.