A Donegal man who stalked and threatened his ex-girlfriend is to be deported from Australia after serving two years in jail.
Gavin Porter from Buncrana had been dating mum-of-three Tash Kramer last year but started to show signs of threatening behaviour three months into the relationship when he became jealous and possessive.
She said he would then “beg for forgiveness” and the cycle would repeat itself.
Porter would drive past Kramer’s house in Benalla, north-east of Melbourne, and persistently call her.
He also sent her messages threatening to “cut your throat” and “make your life hell”.
“He would get drunk and just start calling me names – Calling me fat, calling me ugly, telling me to kill myself and then have no recollection the next day,” Kramer told Ally Langdon on Australian news programme A Current Affair this week.
Kramer said Porter’s controlling behaviour eventually turned violent, detailing how he punched her in the hip and choked her on the ground after she grabbed her phone on one occasion.
“I would always do what he asked me to do, go where he wanted me to go, just to keep the peace,” she said.
“I tried many times to end the relationship, but he wouldn’t have it, I was a possession to him”.
Porter also threatened Kramer over an intimate video he recorded without her consent, which she said he then posted on his Snapchat story.
He told her: “I really am going to forward that video if you don’t talk to me. I advise you strongly to contact me in the next 10 minutes, before your father and everyone sees (the) videos”.
The Donegal man was later arrested and interrogated by Detective Senior Constable Kim Sneddon in a recorded police interview.
“When I compiled the brief of evidence and had a look there were over 3,000 text messages alone,” Sneddon said.
Police put an interim family violence intervention order in place seven months after they began their relationship.
The temporary restraining order protects applicants from violence, threats or abuse from a family member (or former family member).
Kramer said Porter feared the court order would result in him losing his visa and, after trying to end their relationship, she received a birthday card from him reading: “Can’t wait until we are back together again… PS – How’s your windpipe?”.
“We were in the back of the car and choked me with his fingers… It was a bit of a running joke with him.
“He said something along the lines of if he can’t have me, nobody else will”.
Kramer agreed to have the family violence intervention order put in place for a year.
“Within a minute of me agreeing to the order, my phone started ringing and Gavin was making threats to come to my work,” she explained.
“I just felt like I couldn’t protect my kids anymore and thought I’d be better if I wasn’t around, so I drove to the train tracks.”
Senior Constable Zach Clark said he spent “probably an hour” looking for Kramer until police found her in bushes beside the train line.
“We took her back to the police station and tried to calm her down and get a story from her”.
But Porter did not leave Kramer alone and instead arrived at her house, waking her up by tapping on her window as her children slept.
Kramer said she grabbed a knife from her kitchen and locked the children inside the house before running outside to keep him away from her kids.
“Thankfully, I live pretty close to the police station and they got there pretty quickly, but unfortunately couldn’t catch him,” she told A Current Affair.
Porter was arrested at a hotel in Melbourne’s central business district last November after flying from Western Australia back to Victoria.
He was sentenced to two years in prison and will be deported after serving his sentence.
A magistrate described the case as one of the worst family violence cases they’ve ever heard in a courtroom.
Meanwhile, Kramer has moved out of Benalla and is urging people who find themselves in similar situations to go to the police.
“I resisted for such a long time and made things much harder for myself, they’re there to help,” she said.
