Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has told a Hobart court she feared for her life after receiving disturbing online messages from her abuser.
Ms Tame gave evidence at Hobart Magistrates Court on Tuesday during a special hearing for Nicolaas Ockert Bester, 74, who sexually abused her in 2010 when she was his 15-year-old student.
Bester was charged in 2022 with three counts of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend, and pleaded not guilty. The former mathematics teacher watched Tuesday's proceedings via video link from an undisclosed location.
Ms Tame rose to national prominence as an advocate for survivors of sexual assault after being named Australian of the Year in 2021. Hobart Magistrates Court, located in the capital of Tasmania, heard details of the alleged online harassment campaign directed at her following her public advocacy work.
The court was told Bester allegedly made public posts on social media platform Twitter in 2022 aimed at Ms Tame. Three public messages posted from the account NicoBester3 in 2022 were read aloud during the hearing.
All three tweets referenced Ms Tame's former school email address. That email was linked to her Facebook account at the time of the offenses and served as the primary means by which Bester messaged her during the 2010 abuse.
"At last I will come for" the email address, the first post read.
The second post claimed Bester was "coming" like former US President Donald Trump and UK far-right figures Tommy Robinson and Milo Yiannopoulos, adding that there was only "10 weeks to go".
The third message stated "here it comes! Only four weeks to go! The good old comeuppance on its way" followed by her childhood email address.
Ms Tame told the court she became aware of the Twitter posts incrementally before realizing that the 10-week and four-week timeframes were a countdown to the release of her book.
She said the posts took her straight back to the time of the abuse on the floor in his school classroom. "I was horrified, terrified and quite disturbed," she testified.
"To me this was a signal of a very real commitment to follow through with some kind of public-facing plan to inflict harm upon me," Ms Tame told the magistrate.
She explained that she feared Bester's mention of her childhood email address was a direct threat to publish sexualized messages exchanged between them when he groomed her as a student.
"I was also legitimately scared for my life," Ms Tame said, adding that Bester had previously told her stories about killing people during his time serving in the army.
"This is a man who had psychologically tortured and repeatedly raped me," she said. "I did not need to imagine his capacity to cause harm."
Ms Tame said the threat forced her to ramp up security for her nationwide book tour. She added that the experience brought her close to rock bottom with thoughts of suicide.
Police search uncovers revenge folder
Tasmania Police Constable Declan Gillett gave evidence regarding items seized following a 2022 police raid on Bester's property. He told the court that officers found a folder of media coverage about Ms Tame stored on Bester's portable hard drives.
The folder was named "wraak", which is the Afrikaans word for revenge. Constable Gillett confirmed that Bester kept a revenge folder on portable devices containing pictures and videos of Ms Tame.
Investigating officers also uncovered an outgoing email sent in 2017 from Bester's email account to Bettina Arndt, a men's rights activist and former sex therapist. The email included an attached document containing purported Facebook messages exchanged between Bester and Ms Tame during the 2010 abuse.
Ms Tame told the court that learning of the 2017 email in 2022 would have been devastating. "Worst-case scenario, it would have driven me towards the end," she said.
Special hearing procedure and legal options
The court was previously informed that Bester suffers from dementia and was declared medically unfit to stand trial in February. A special hearing is a legal mechanism used in Australian courts when an accused person cannot face trial due to medical or cognitive conditions.
In a special hearing, the court cannot deliver a guilty verdict. Instead, the magistrate can make a finding of not guilty, a finding of not guilty on mental health grounds, or determine that a finding of not guilty cannot be made.
Prior convictions and support services
Bester was previously sentenced in 2011 to two years and 10 months in jail for abusing Ms Tame and possessing child exploitation material. In 2016, the former teacher was jailed for four months for producing child exploitation material after describing the abuse online.
Support for anyone affected by sexual abuse or mental health distress is available in Australia through 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732, the National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service on 1800 211 028, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
