A woman who was the target of vile deepfake pornography was horrified to learn her perverted attacker was a close friend.
Hannah Grundy received a series of anonymous emails in February 2022 warning that several pornographic images of her had been shared on a website.
At first, the young Sydney high school science teacher dismissed the tips as a poorly executed scam until a particularly urgent message caused Grundy and her partner, Kris Ventura, to finally open the link.
It unlocked a trove of explicit and violent images showing Grundy engaging in degrading acts, none of which he had committed, let alone in front of a camera.
They later discovered that the website was found by a New Zealand private investigator who realized the danger its content had put Ms Grundy in.
Although the photos and videos were created with AI overlaying Grundy’s face with other women, there were hundreds of people who shared his very real desire to attack her and some even went so far as to boast that they knew where she lived.
“Knowing that there was someone out there who was so obsessed with me was just terrifying,” he said. The ABC Australian Story.
As Ventura looked at the website, a task Ms Grundy could not bear, she realized it also contained other images of women the couple had worked with at Sydney University’s Manning Bar.
Hannah Grundy (pictured) was a victim of deepfake pornography, which used artificial intelligence technology to superimpose her face onto pornographic photographs and videos.
Ms Grundy and her partner Kris Ventura (pictured together) were alerted to the website containing fake pornographic images through anonymous emails from a New Zealand private investigator.
Ms. Grundy and Mr. Ventura met while working at the bar 13 years ago and have since progressed to careers as a high school science teacher and financial worker.
What further fueled their suspicions that someone they knew was behind the website was the fact that the photos had been taken from Ms Grundy’s private social media accounts.
After checking their friends and mutual friends of the other women on the website, the couple realized that the attacker was someone very close to them: Andrew Hayler.
“He’s been at our house, we’ve been on vacation with him, a lot of the great moments in our lives over the last 10 years have happened with him there,” Grundy said.
Hayler was so close to the couple that he was one of 30 people they had planned to invite to their wedding.
While maintaining a seemingly innocent friendship with the couple, Hayler had been sharing the disturbing pornography, as well as details of Ms Grundy’s full name, the suburb she lived in, her career and her social media contacts.
He would even share a poll asking how his audience wanted to “destroy Hannah” and list various forms of sexual assault as options to choose from.
The couple spent $20,000 collecting more than 600 screenshots and spreadsheets of social media friend lists implicating Hayler, and hired a lawyer and a computer forensics expert.
Police finally arrested Hayler in August 2022, after six months of Grundy fearing she would be attacked by him or a stranger who had seen the videos.
Ms Grundy said of her once close Andrew Hayler: “He’s been to our house, we’ve been on holiday with him, a lot of the great moments of our lives over the last 10 years have been with him there” (pictured ). From left to right, Mr. Ventura, Mrs. Grundy and Hayler)
Officers raided Hayler’s home in the inner Sydney suburb of Erskineville, where they discovered USB drives containing folders full of photographs of other women.
Hayler was unaware that neither Ms. Grundy nor Mr. Ventura were aware of the website until his arrest.
He pleaded guilty to 28 charges of using a transport service to offend 26 complainants.
‘Very sorry. “I was living in this strange, confusing fantasy, not thinking about the consequences of my actions… I think I thought no one would really see it,” Hayler told the court.
His legal team claimed his actions had been driven by an addiction to “rough and domination” pornography, as well as cocaine, alcohol and methamphetamines.
Ms Grundy (pictured) recalled how she “broke down” and finally felt heard as a victim after the sentence was handed down.
Six women took Hayler to court to describe how her weaponization of deepfakes had impacted their lives, with one of them, Jessica Stuart, saying she had “incited an entire community of predators against us.”
Judge Jane Culver sentenced Hayler to nine years in prison with a non-parole period of five and a half years.
She described his crimes as “a vivid and dangerous example” of how technology could be used to destroy lives.
“They have lost a sense of security, a sense of privacy… above all, they have lost a sense of themselves and their former lives,” Judge Culver said in her closing remarks.
Mrs. Grundy recalled that she “broke down” and finally felt heard as a victim after the sentence was pronounced.
Still, the experience has deeply scarred and continues to traumatize Grundy as the images resurface on the Internet, even though the website has been shut down.
“I’ll always have to deal with that… it will continue for the rest of my life,” he said.
Australia’s criminal code was amended in August to sentence anyone found guilty of creating “sexually explicit, deepfake and non-consensual material” to up to seven years in prison.