Australia's Za - 9,000 messages after 1 failed Tinder data
Denise Lee: Vile, obscene emails of doctor who sent Tinder date 9000 texts
A magistrate has described a Sydney specialist’s “vile, despicable” hate emails to the new girlfriend of the Tinder date lover she bombarded with more than 9000 texts and messages.
Radiologist Denise Jane Lee sat in court with her face hidden behind a huge surgical mask as magistrate Michael Barko read out lurid and humiliating detail of her failed sex affair with financier Matthew Holberton.
Lee did not arrive at the Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday wearing the mask, but tied it on before entering the courtroom for sentencing.
The 41-year-old, the court heard, had spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” on top lawyers defending one count of intimidation with intent to cause fear or physical harm, and three counts of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.
Mr Barko told the court Lee had stated, ironically, that she was “not a bunny boiler” but then had sent abusive and threatening texts.
He revealed, however, Lee boasted about her revenge on another male lover in a threat to Mr Holberton that she “got even with him, ten years of investment banking down the drain”.
But it was the malicious and obscene emails to and about Mr Holberton’s new girlfriend, university ethics adviser, Georgia Dempster, which Mr Barko said were of the like he’d never seen before.
Following the barrage of texts to Mr Holberton in 2015, a torrent of emails were sent in 2016 and 2017 to his friends and bike club, and to colleagues of Ms Dempster and her mother, respected medical epidemiologist Professor Robin Bell.
Mr Barko read out “the worst” of these which began when she discovered, via a photo of the new couple posted on Instagram, the man who spurned was in a new relationship with Ms Dempster.
The day after, Lee unleashed a barrage of vicious defamatory bile about Ms Dempster “referring to her genitalia, physical features … her lifestyle … people she loved”.
In one long abusive email, which Mr Barko said included a stolen photo of Ms Dempster “lying in a pasture almost like a Sound of Music type view”, Lee began calling her “haggard” and “old and frumpy”.
Mr Barko read out Lee’s derogatory rave mocking Ms Dempster and referring, in a repeated and obsessive manner, to private parts.
The vicious attack included bizarre suggestions by Lee that Ms Dempster had sex with an animal, exposed herself and was a transgender person.
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Denise Lee sent 900 text messages to her lover from a failed Tinder date and malicious emails about his new flame. Picture: Monique Harmer.Source:News Corp Australia
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Lee and Matthew Holberton had two sexual encounters before her abusive texts started rolling in. Picture: Monique Harmer.Source:News Corp Australia
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Radiologist Denise Lee then harassed Georgia Dempster.Source:Supplied
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Lee threatened Mr Holberton with revenge.Source:Supplied
Lee, who Mr Barko told the court “required psychiatric treatment” then made further baseless claims, this time about Mr Holberton.
She claimed he “likes petite women … women he can pick up … with delicate doll-like features”.
“He might like cycling thighs on himself, but it doesn’t mean he wants to sleep with them,” she wrote.
In one email, Lee berated Mr Holberton’s sexual performance, saying he had been “going like a jackrabbit”.
Mr Barko twice made mild criticism during his judgment of Mr Holberton’s failure to state his intentions with Lee.
Mr Holberton “didn’t have genuine intentions of having a longlasting relationship with the defendant … (and) he should have made that abundantly clear from the start”, the court heard.
Mr Barko opened the lengthy sentencing hearing in dramatic form, quoting 17th century playwright William Congreve’s famous line “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”.
Saying “I pride myself on the fact I do not use social media”, he said some people were wisely seeking “to quarantine themselves” from it.
But Denise Lee, who faced a potential two years in prison for her offences, had sent more than 60 messages in a few hours to Mr Holberton on one occasions in “a rollercoaster of emotions”.
Lee pleaded guilty last year to bombarding finance director Matthew Holberton with abusive texts and sending nasty emails to Ms Dempster and her mother.
Mr Barko said Lee, who was dux of her school and scored a perfect 100 in the HSC as a teenager, was “obviously extremely bright and intelligent”.
But he said she should “never have used her intelligence to manipulate … to continue to communicate with those who did not want to be communicated with”.
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Denise Jane Lee arrives at the Downing Centre Court on Wednesday for sentencing. Picture John GraingerSource:News Corp Australia
Lee was originally charged with ten counts relating to abusive and threatening texts sent over three months in 2015 and was sacked from her job as a radiologist.
But last year, six of the charges were dropped.
Lee was a 36-year-old specialist working at Australia’s largest medical imaging clinic network, I-MED, when she met Mr Holberton in July 2015 via the dating app, Tinder.
Then an account manager with Pinnacle Investment Management, Mr Holberton would have seemed like the ideal romantic candidate to Lee.
A former private schoolboy who studied languages and maths at Trinity Grammar School, he was a Melbourne University Bachelor of Commerce and Finance graduate.
Over four months, they would have ten dates including two sexual liaisons and an “encounter”.
Prosecutors, however, described theirs as a “very, very brief relationship” with Mr Holberton trying on the last three dates to end their liaison which by then had turned toxic.
After the first of four dinner dates with Lee on July 28 in 2015, Mr Holberton texted her that “soft skin and firm muscles are sexy”.
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On the second dinner date, August 29, nothing sexual happened, but after the third, on September 3, the pair had a “consensual encounter” in the entrance hall landing of her flat.
On September 18, after their fourth dinner date, Mr Holberton returned with Lee to her house and they had sexual intercourse.
But by September 22, Lee seemed unhappy, sending three texts in two minutes to Mr Holberton saying, “I was happy to go out with you. I didn’t know it was just for sex. That changes it”.
Three minutes later she texted, “a dirty f**k on the landing would have suited you just fine I think”.
Two days later, she sent him 20 unhappy texts and said she was “really angry”.
On September 25, Mr Holberton texted her: “Your behaviour leaves me cold. I officially never want to talk to or see you again”.
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Denise Jane Lee was so angry with Mr Holberton she harassed his boss and his new girlfriend’s colleagues with nasty emails. Picture: Adam YipSource:News Corp Australia
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As a 17-year-old, Lee (circled) was dux of her school and scored a perfect 100 TER in her HSC exams.Source:News Corp Australia
Lee continued to text, jeering at him with “you don’t even know how to touch a girl”.
On October 3, 2015, they met and had their last sexual encounter.
During and after three meetings “trying to cool things off”, Lee’s barrage of texts continued.
The texts included the threats “you deserve everything you’re going to get”, “I will make you f***ing pay”, “I am going to f**k your life up” and “whatever you value most, I’ll target”.
On November 11, 2015, Lee started texting Mr Holberton in the morning, sent a further 69 texts or voice messages between 9.35am and 10.55am, including “you are going to regret f***ing taking me for a ride”.
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Denise Lee proved to be a snob about prestigious universities in her catty emails about her romantic replacement. Picture: John GraingerSource:News Corp Australia
Between November and December 15, she texted, “I want payback for what you did to me” and “I know where you live and work”.
Then, “I am going to f**k you up the way you f***ed me up” and “maybe your parents need to find out”.
And “I will get my revenge for how you f***ed me over and you won’t know what hit you”.
Lee also emailed the CEO of Pinnacle Investments, Mr Holberton’s employer.
Then, when he relocated to Melbourne and started dating ethics adviser Georgia Dempster, Lee began emailing colleagues and friends of Ms Dempster and her mother.
As revealed exclusively by news.com.au last November, Lee displayed a cattiness and perceived intellectual superiority to her romantic successor who she dubbed “The Unit”.
Along with derogatory remarks about Ms Dempster’s appearance, Lee wrote: “Isn’t this The Unit who couldn’t get into a basic Bachelor of Commerce degree at Monash or Melbourne university, she had to go to RMIT HAHAHAHAH.”
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Denise Lee’s romance with her Tinder date turned sour very quickly and she became abusive online. Picture: Adam YipSource:News Corp Australia
Lee’s snobbery ignored the fact Ms Dempster also has degrees from the two prestigious universities Lee admired.
Lee’s emails to university colleagues of both Ms Dempster and her mother, a respected epidemiology professor, contained entirely fabricated slurs against their professional lives.
Sent in late 2016 and early 2017 using an encrypted sender, Lee’s cleverly crafted vile online campaign also employed crude put-downs of Ms Dempster’s physical attractiveness.
Using photos Lee raided from Ms Dempster’s Instagram account, Lee’s messages of hate are punctuated with near maniacal outbursts of “HAHAHAHAHA”.
In December 2016, police raided Lee’s Sydney flat, seizing mobile phones, a laptop, a tablet and other devices.
In late February, 2017, detectives charged Lee.
The NSW Medical Council suspended her licence to practise, but after Lee appealed to the NSW Civil Administration Tribunal, she was granted a temporary stay on the suspension.
The tribunal heard Lee needed to work to fund up to $300,000 in legal fees.
Apart from a $350,000 share portfolio, she had a mortgage on her $1.695 million flat in the eastern Sydney harbourside suburb of Rushcutters Bay.
The NSW Medical Council’s suspension had been on the grounds she allegedly acted “in ways that damage the standing of the medical profession” and posed a “significant risk” she might behave similarly to patients.
NCAT Acting Judge Dennis Cowdroy ruled the Council had not identified any risk to any patient.
Mr Barko said Lee “faces an uphill battle ever to regain her … lost practising certificate” as a doctor.
Denise Lee: Vile, obscene emails of doctor who sent Tinder date 9000 texts
