THE conversation starts at a weary 5.30am and by mid-morning has become very explicit.
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Two strangers connected through mobile phone dating app Tinder exchange pleasantries before thoughts turn to sex and how much it would cost for 20-year-old ‘‘Brittany’’ to meet up with her new 34-year-old friend.
There is some small talk about what he would get for his money, before the man agrees to meet Brittany in a carpark near Morisset pool about 5pm for their rendezvous.
But when he arrives and walks towards the girl he thinks is named Brittany, he doesn’t get lucky.
Instead, a young thug called Jack Anthony Croucher and another male are waiting to rob the gullible victim of his cash - about $290 - as well as a bottle of Wild Turkey he had bought at Brittany’s request and his mobile phone before using a 50cm-long steel pipe to smash his car’s windscreen.
The victim quickly goes from Tinder success story to the tale that every online dating participant should know about.
Tinder is a popular dating app used on smartphones.
Users view pictures and read profiles of other users in their area, and they flick the screen to register interest.
If there is mutual interest, it results in a ‘‘match’’, allowing the two users to chat within the app.
Facts tendered as part of the brief of evidence say that the victim is matched up with Brittany at 5.32am and sends her a message.
By 7.42am , Brittany replies and by 9.36am she asked him ‘‘you wanna f--- me’’ followed by ‘‘it’s gunna cost ya’’.
Negotiations were quickly underway about what services could be given and how much it would cost before a price of between $250 and $300 is all but agreed.
The conversation on Tinder, which was contained in the evidence brief against Croucher, also shows how the victim says he was not into ‘‘party drugs’’ before agreeing to meet Brittany at 5pm.
When he arrives, he sees two men sitting in a parked car only metres away.
Brittany rings, tells the victim she is there and if he could get out of his car so he could ‘‘hug’’ her.
But court documents reveal that as the victim approached Brittany, Croucher gets out of his car armed with a long steel pole and threatens him.
He is then robbed of the $290 in his wallet, his iphone and the $27 bottle of Wild Turkey he had bought for the rendezvous.
And when he declines to have over his credit cards, Croucher smashes his windscreen with the pole before he, Brittany and another man walk off.
The victim drives to a service station, gets his car towed away and heads to a police station to report the robbery.
Croucher, 20, of Bonnells Bay, was committed on Wednesday to be sentenced in Newcastle District Court next month of the armed robbery.
The girl purported to be Brittany has also been charged and is still going through the courts.
