A Melbourne radio presenter has broken down while recounting a frightening encounter she believes could have ended in her being trafficked after a night out with friends.
Grace Newton-Wordsworth, a Joy FM host and member of the band Joan & the Giants, said the unsettling incident took place over the weekend.
‘I was walking home in the early hours of the morning after being out with friends and I was walking on a main street towards my street, and a guy got out of his car quite quickly,’ she said.
‘He was like, “Hey, do you have a lighter?” and I got out my lighter.’
Newton-Wordsworth said the conversation quickly became uncomfortable as the man continued questioning her, including asking where she lived.
‘I said I need to go, but thanks for the lovely chat,’ she recalled.
She said the situation escalated when the man offered to take her home and repeatedly encouraged her to get into his car.
Sensing something was wrong, Newton-Wordsworth said she chose to ‘trust my gut and intuition’ and walked away.
An Aussie radio host shared her terrifying ordeal online after what she believes may have been a potential trafficking incident in Melbourne
She noticed a white car slow beside her, stopping at a sign for what felt like an unusually long time.
‘This is not normal, he should be gone,’ Newton-Wordsworth recalled thinking.
‘I just started feeling like they were working together.’
She said she became concerned about why the first man was so interested in where she lived.
‘I don’t know where this guy needs to know where I live,’ she said.
Ms Newton-Wordsworth chose a different route home to stop the men from finding out where she lived.
‘I’m going down a different street, so they don’t know where I live,’ she recalled.
But she said the white car began reversing.
Newton-Wordsworth said something did not feel right and she decided to ‘trust my gut and intuition’ and walked away from the interaction with the man
‘This is so stressful,’ she said.
She noticed the man from the first car watching down the street as the white car reversed.
‘I had to make a choice. If I don’t move now, I feel like they are going to do something awful,’ Newton-Wordsworth said.
‘I just bolted into my apartment and I was shaking and so scared.’
She said she was terrified knowing the men now know where she lives.
She said the experience left her extremely frightened and convinced she had been deliberately targeted.
‘I am fairly certain I was targeted for trafficking,’ she said and warned other women to be careful.
‘It was very scary. It is not safe out there for women. We have to live with our guard up,’ she warned.
Two cars followed Newton-Wordsworth when she was walking home in Melbourne
Newton-Wordsworth shared her encounter on Instagram, with other women saying they’d had similar, horrifying experiences.
‘Similar thing happened to me in Melbourne,’ one wrote.
‘He popped up out of nowhere in front of me as I was walking and looking at my phone, grabbed me and tried to pull me into a white car.
‘He already had the car door open. I elbowed him and then he shoved me into a brick fence and then tried to drag me into the car again.’
‘I’ve been in similar situations. Often if there’s a business near by or someone passing you can go to them and signal you need help,’ a second added.
Daily Mail contacted Victoria Police for comment.
