Zane Alchin, 25, admits to using a carriage service to menace Paloma Brierley Newton, who reported him to the police

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A Sydney man who has pleaded guilty to making explicit rape threats on Facebook told police the comments did not reflect who he was, and that he was not aware that “internet trolling” was a crime.

Zane Alchin, 25, from Caringbah, pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to menace at the Downing Centre local court in Sydney on Monday.



He was charged in October after posting more than 50 comments publicly to Facebook, most of which were explicit and derogatory.

Sydney man gets court date for legal test case over alleged Facebook rape threats Read more

Several were addressed to Paloma Brierley Newton, a 24-year-old Newtown woman, who reported Alchin’s comments to police.

Among the comments Alchin made were: “You know the best thing about a feminist they don’t get any action so when you rape them it feels 100 times tighter”; “You’ll be eating my cock till you puke”; and “I’d rape you if you were better looking”.

When Brierley Newton threatened to report him to police, Alchin replied: “What law am I breaking? I’m not the one out of the fucking kitchen.”

Alchin posted 55 comments in a two-hour period. Brierley Newton reported him to police, gave them a USB drive containing screenshots of his comments and blocked him on Facebook.

In her witness statement, Brierley Newton said Alchin’s comments made her feel scared and offended. “I felt like I was being ambushed, harassed, intimidated, and that I was defenceless.”

She took particular offence to one of Alchin’s first comments, in which he insinuated feminists should be raped: “Please you cunts deserve to be taken back to the 50s were you will learn to know your role and shut your damn mouth.” [sic]

After he was arrested, Alchin admitted posting the comments, but told police he was drunk at the time and that the comments did not represent him as a person.

In a statement to police he said he was internet trolling “a group of feminists that were harassing me and my friends” and was unaware that it was a crime. Alchin said he was remorseful.

After initially indicating he would plead guilty, in mid-January he changed his plea to not guilty at Newtown local court.

In May, his legal representative indicated the case for the defence would rest on an argument as to whether the internet was a carriage service.

But on Monday Alchin pleaded guilty. He did not speak during the hearing, at which sentencing was set for 29 July.

The charge carries a maximum punishment of three years’ imprisonment. Alchin has no previous criminal history.

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The case had previously been described as a test of legal and police responses to the online harassment of women.



Brierley Newton – who founded an advocacy group, Sexual Violence Won’t Be Silenced, to campaign for victims of online abuse – was pleased with Alchin’s guilty plea.



“Our victory today sends a message to all women that they don’t have to put up with harassment online, that there are steps and channels they can take, and that Australian law is on their side.”

Brierley Newton told reporters outside the court she hoped Alchin would apologise.

“Pleading guilty’s one thing but actually admitting that you’ve done the wrong thing, as opposed to realising you can’t get out of what you’ve done – I want to hear him say that he is sorry for what he said, rather than he’s sorry that he got caught.”

She said Sexual Violence Won’t Be Silenced hoped to be involved in training about online abuse for law enforcement.

A study by the digital security firm Norton, released in March, found nearly half of Australian women had experienced some form of abuse or harassment online and suggested that women felt online abuse was a growing problem they were powerless to tackle.

The rate was as high as 76% among adult women under 30, who were over-represented in every category of online abuse.