The streets in the UK are a little safer this week after a rapist who used dating site Match.com to find his victims has been sent to jail to serve a life sentence.
Jason Lawrance (his spelling, not ours) from Hampshire in the UK raped five women between 2011 and 2014, as well as sexually assaulting another and attempting to rape another. Lawrance – who is married with 3 children – used popular online dating website Match.com to hunt down his victims.
According to reports, Lawrance tried to initiate contact with thousands of women on the dating website, concentrating his efforts on those who chose to reply.
Trial judge Gregory Dickinson said that Lawrance was “devious and manipulative” and that, “given half the chance”, he would rape again. He will be spending a minimum of 12 and half years in jail before being possibly considered for parole.
The case once again brings up the important issue of safe online dating, especially for women who generally receive many more messages and requests than men when using these types of websites.
While not a comprehensive list (we’ll be adding one soon) here are a few tips for a safer online dating experience.
– Keep your communication on the dating website. It can often be tempting to connect through social media websites, even in the early stages after initial contact, but this is never recommended. One of the reasons Lawrance managed to keep his dating profile on Match.com for so long was because he was able to connect with his victims outside of the dating website, and thus they could not spot or identify his unacceptable behaviour.
– Don’t give out your full name, address, social media profiles or anything that can be used to identify you. Dating websites allow you – for good reason – to use online pseudonyms, to protect your identity. It is important never to disclose any personal information about yourself too quickly. This includes your social media accounts which can give away lots of personal information, your address (obviously), your email address and especially your full name. Also be wary of giving out information that could be used to help track you down, like what school you go (or went) to or where you work. Remember that experienced conmen can use seemingly innocuous information about you to build up a profile which can be used to locate you or even impersonate you online.
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– Watch out for typical red flags that may suggest you are being scammed or victimised. Be wary of people who want to meet you in real life too fast. On the flip side of that, also be careful of those who say they can’t meet you because they live abroad and need money to visit you, as this is advance fee fraud. Other tale-tell signs are people who seem overly keen or declare their love for you suspiciously quickly. Never send money to people you’ve met online either, for whatever reason.
– Do your due diligence. If you’re suspicious of someone, you can use the open nature of the Internet to your advantage. Take their profile picture and perform a reverse image search with Google to check if their image is elsewhere on the Internet under a different name. If it is, then the person you are talking to likely stole the photo, in which case they should not be trusted.
– Meet in a safe place. Perhaps the most obvious advice – yet still overlooked by many – is when you do decide to meet in the real world, to do it in a safe place, preferably during the day. Meet in a public place with plenty of people around. During this first meet, try and avoid places and situations where you will be alone.
– Always tell a friend. If you do meet up with someone you met up online for the first time, tell a friend. Let them know when and where you are meeting and where you will be going and try not to deviate from that plan.