‘He’s a disgraceful human’
A convicted rapist has been deported to New Zealand. His victim says she is terrified he will use charity boxing matches to target other women. Blair Ensor investigates.
Nicole Cheetham lies awake at night worrying that the man who raped her might attack another woman.
That man, Jonathan Dooner, 49, was deported to New Zealand earlier this year after he was released from an Australian prison.
Over the course of a decade, Dooner, a double bankrupt, staged about 20 charity boxing events in New South Wales and Queensland under the banner Black Tie Corporate Fight Night.
Late last month, the personal trainer, who’s fought competitively and now lives near Auckland, took to social media saying: ‘‘Time to unleash this experience here – hugely successful in Australia raising in excess of $130k for various charities. Watch this space … Corporate Fight Night is coming.’’
Cheetham, who lives on the Gold Coast and wants to become a police officer, is concerned Dooner will use the boxing events to strike up relationships with women, like he did with her.
‘‘The only reason I’m putting myself out there is to stop that happening,’’ the 39-year-old told the Sunday Star-Times this week.
‘‘I’m really concerned for females.’’
She describes her ordeal with Dooner, which involved spying and stalking, as an ‘‘horrific nightmare’’.
‘‘He’s a disgraceful human being.’’
Cheetham was working out at a Gold Coast gym in early 2017 when Dooner sidled up to her and asked if she wanted to try boxing.
He seemed like a nice guy, despite appearing a little out of shape for a personal trainer, and, as a fitness fanatic, she was keen to explore new ways to stay in shape.
After the first session, Cheetham says Dooner asked if she would take part in a charity boxing event he was promoting.
It involved about 12 weeks of training and would end with a bout against one of 12 other participants.
Cheetham says she isn’t one for public attention, but Dooner was persuasive, telling her he thought she had good technique for a rookie.
As she prepared for the event, the pair saw each other most days. She says Dooner was ‘‘very hands on’’ and one day bought her a present, told her he liked her a lot and forcibly kissed her.
Cheetham says she was quite taken aback, but liked the attention.
Over the coming months the pair had an off-and-on-again relationship, which she describes as ‘‘quite toxic at times’’.
Dooner turned up at Cheetham’s home and work unannounced, messaged her from fake Facebook profiles and placed a listening device in her car to see if she was cheating on him.
She discovered he was bankrupted in New Zealand in 2008. Cheetham says she withdrew from the boxing event and tried to end the relationship on numerous occasions, but he always managed to find a way back into her life.
In early 2018, after some of Dooner’s ex-partners contacted her with concerns about his character and his handling of charity money, she decided enough was enough and told him it was over.
On February 4, he emailed saying he was moving back to New Zealand and asked if he could come and say goodbye.
Cheetham says she agreed, reluctantly.
That night Dooner turned up at her house and pleaded for her to take him back. When she said no, he forced himself on her saying ‘‘we love each other’’.
Despite begging him to stop, he raped her. The next day she complained to the police.
Dooner was arrested later that day, shortly after boarding a flight back to New Zealand. He
was charged with rape, but released on bail.
In the days that followed, a petrified Cheetham, who’d had security cameras installed at her home, caught Dooner outside her window, despite him being barred from seeing her. When police caught up with him, he was taken into custody for breaching the conditions of his bail.
Dooner pleaded guilty to raping Cheetham several days before he was due to stand trial.
On August 9 last year, at the Southport District Court, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
According to local media reports, the judge described Dooner’s offending as ‘‘utterly disgraceful’’ and said he had a ‘‘misconceived view’’ about love and relationships.
He appeared to have ‘‘no insight into his offending behaviour’’, the judge said.
Because of the time he’d spent on remand, Dooner was released from prison six months later and deported to New Zealand on February 10.
He is subject to a Returning Offenders Order, parole-like conditions imposed on people who spent a year or more in an Australian prison and were released within six months of their deportation.
A Corrections spokesman said Dooner was living at an agreed address, met regularly with a probation officer and would receive reintegration help if necessary.
Breaches of those conditions, depending on the severity, could result in a warning, a fine or imprisonment, the spokesman said.
When Dooner wrote on social media last month suggesting he was planning to stage charity fight nights in New Zealand, he listed several organisations that had benefited from his events in Australia.
They included the breast cancer charity the McGrath Foundation and Make-A-Wish, which the Star-Times has established received a combined $30,000.
‘‘We are grateful for Mr Dooner’s efforts raising funds for the McGrath Foundation via the Black Tie Boxing Corporate Fight Night in 2010,’’ a McGrath Foundation spokeswoman said this week.
However, Dooner’s social media post didn’t mention the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, which was founded by the parents of 13-year-old Daniel Morcombe, who was abducted and murdered on the Gold Coast in 2003.
The foundation, which advocates for child safety, was the charity of choice for the last fight night he hosted in Australia in December 2017, several months after he was declared bankrupt for a second time. It was to receive the proceeds of a live auction that took place at the event. The fundraising target was $10,000.
A Daniel Morcombe Foundation spokeswoman says several thousand dollars was raised, but none of it made it to the foundation. Dooner was ‘‘uncontactable’’ after fight night, the spokeswoman said.
‘‘My recommendation is not to get involved with this type of event.’’
Dooner is living with his sister in a house on a busy arterial route into Pukekohe, 50km south of Auckland.
The town has become a thriving hub with several new housing developments, as many young families head there in search of a more affordable lifestyle.
‘‘Interesting story,’’ says Dooner, of how he came to be convicted of rape, when contacted by the Star-Times last week. ‘‘It’s totally fabricated.’’
He says he pleaded guilty because he didn’t have any money to fight the charge.
‘‘Unfortunately, because I was on legal aid, they don’t give a s .... My lawyer didn’t do any investigation into anything, nothing.’’
Dooner acknowledges putting the listening device in Cheetham’s car and visiting her home not long after his arrest.
However, he says he’s not a risk to women ‘‘because I never laid a hand on her’’.
Asked whether he has any other convictions, Dooner says he fraudulently used a document more than decade ago in New Zealand, but that was ‘‘very minor’’.
He maintains he’s an upstanding citizen. ‘‘If you look at it on the surface it doesn’t look great, but if you dig beneath it, it’s a little bit different.’’
Dooner, who has had two failed marriages, says he was bankrupted in 2008 after an expartner ‘‘left me with the bills … and I couldn’t cover them’’.
The latter was the result of ‘‘debts and that kind of thing’’.
He says his charity fight nights have all been ‘‘100 per cent’’ above board.
The Daniel Morcombe Foundation didn’t receive any money following the 2017 event because ‘‘nothing was raised’’.
‘‘The auction items that I had didn’t go over reserve.’’
No-one from the foundation contacted him after the event, he says.
Dooner hasn’t secured a job since he was deported – Covid-19 has made finding work difficult.
He remains passionate about charity boxing – it ‘‘changes people’s lives’’ – and is toying with the idea of hosting fight nights again.
A lot depends on ‘‘what the climate is like here’’.
Support from major players in the sport might be difficult to come by.
Auckland Boxing Association (ABA) president Paul McSharry says he’s never met Dooner but recently learned about his history.
The ABA has a venue in Eden Tce, Auckland, that has capacity for 18 tables ringside and, according to McSharry, is the ‘‘cheapest in town’’.
He says Dooner’s criminal record will be a major barrier to him getting a permit from police to promote events in New Zealand. ‘‘He’s not likely to be given the keys to the ABA.’’
‘‘The only reason I’m putting myself out there is to stop that happening. I’m really concerned for females.’’
Nicole Cheetham