Grace Tame's months-long battle to get action taken against abuser

When confronted with "threats and harassment" in the form of public tweets from her abuser, Grace Tame did what people in her situation are told to do — she went to the police.

"I've been to police a number of times about these things, but no action … no changes have come about," she told ABC Radio Melbourne, a day after she revealed she had been on the receiving end of messages from the man who groomed and abused her as a 15-year-old, starting in 2010.

"It's really disheartening and disillusioning when you feel like you're banging your head against a wall, when you're trying to draw attention to a menacing predator."

Ms Tame's former maths teacher, Nicolaas Bester, was sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison in 2011 for abusing her and for possessing child exploitation material.

Earlier this year, he began posting a series of tweets that appeared to be counting down to an act of revenge against Ms Tame, coinciding with the launch of her book.

"He is particularly sadistic, and he is particularly evil, and there's something frightening about that," Ms Tame told ABC Melbourne.

Ms Tame made her first report to Tasmania Police earlier in 2022, but has said the "reactive justice system was too slow" — writing that police asked her to "source the IP address" used by Bester.

She said, "if it weren't for the fact that I work in the sector and advocate myself, I might have given up then".

Ms Tame decided to screenshot the tweets and re-post them to her nearly 220,000 Twitter followers.

Within a few hours, Nicolaas Bester's Twitter account was suspended and the Acting Commissioner of Tasmania Police released a statement saying police were "assessing the complaint and Ms Tame has been provided with advice".

Yvette Cehtel from the Women's Legal Service Tasmania said this kind of behaviour from perpetrators of abuse is common.

She said it is just as common for victim-survivors to feel like nothing is being done to protect them — and most don't have the power to drive action that Ms Tame has. 

"Social media has a very real and immediate impact on victim-survivors, and the legal response is often quite slow," Ms Cehtel said.

"There are legal protections that are available for harassment through social media that are available, but really, it can be very difficult sometimes for police and prosecutors to actually collect all the information that they need to meet the legal standards required to make out those offences."

The law also does not automatically protect the victims of sexual or physical violence from being harassed online by their abuser.

"There isn't effectively orders that can extend in perpetuity to stop them contacting the target of abuse.

Ginger Gorman is a journalist and author, who became an expert in cyber hate after she was targeted by online trolls for unknowingly featuring two men who would later be convicted of child sexual abuse in a 2010 story.

She told ABC Radio Hobart that Australia had robust online harassment laws, but that police who handled these types of complaints often were not equipped to do so.

"I would argue that not just Australian police, but police around the world don't understand the gravity of cyber hate, and they don't have the tech skills to enforce it," she said.

"It's why Grace was going to the police and asking for help and they provided her with the IP address, according to her, and nothing else happened.

Ms Gorman said she had been contacted by a woman who had been harassed online for eight years, and was desperate to get help.

"I would love to say that there's an easy answer, but I know from reporting on this for nearly a decade now … that the responses are very patchy," she said.

"My view would be that the government needs to enforce a duty of care, so these platforms have to keep us safe.

In Australia, people can report harmful content to the eSafety Commissioner, who has the power to compel online providers to remove it within 24 hours.

But Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant said the body was established for exactly this purpose.

"This is precisely why we do what we do, to prevent survivors like Grace Tame who are incredibly courageous, from targeted, re-victimised and re-traumatised."

The eSafety Commissioner is trying to get tech companies to play a greater role in detecting abusive material posted on their platforms, and to punish those who post it.

"This includes what we call recidivism … not allowing bad actors who continue to abuse, or use coercive or gaslighting tactics to abuse survivors and re-traumatise them.