Teen Boxer Sentenced Over Grindr ‘honeytrap’ Attack On Gay Man In Brisbane

Cooper Roam Watt, now 20, pleaded guilty in Brisbane District Court to robbery in company with personal violence.

He was released on immediate parole, but Judge John Allen KC recorded a conviction and ordered him to repay $3,000 to the victim.

Man lured and assaulted using Grindr

According to The Courier-Mail, Watt was 18 when he and two younger co-offenders posed as a 15-year-old boy on Grindr and sent the victim a nude image before arranging a meeting at a Deception Bay park on January 27, 2025.

The group attacked the man and forced him to drive them to an ATM, where he withdrew $3,000.

They then made him return to the park, assaulted him again and stole his phone. He was repeatedly called a paedophile while being kicked and punched, leaving him with bruises and abrasions.

Crown prosecutor Zachary Kaplan told the court the group had deliberately targeted a gay man. He linked the offending to social media content encouraging young men to identify suspected child abusers and administer vigilante punishment.

“It relates to what really is an epidemic in relation to young men consuming theatre online and being encouraged to take back society from these people, and in this situation, this defendant and his two co-offenders have done exactly that,” he said.

“Recently the documentarian Louis Theroux released a documentary called Inside the Manosphere – I’m not sure if your honour viewed it,” he asked the judge.

“It addresses influences on social media platforms creating content where they lure what they consider to be pedophiles to a location, where they then extract vigilante justice”

Judge Allen said the attack was serious because the victim was targeted over his sexuality and stressed that a claimed vigilante motive offered no justification.

“The offending was also serious in that it was targeted against a person by reasons of his sexuality and it’s not justified by any vigilante motive,” he said

Watt’s two younger co-offenders have been dealt with separately in the Children’s Court.

The judge accepted that Watt had no criminal history, had complied with bail and made significant rehabilitative progress. His barrister said he had addressed mental health concerns, found construction work after losing an aged care position after losing his Blue Card because of the assault, and played a lesser role in the physical violence.

The case follows the 2025 prosecution of Blake Dean Nightingall, who also used a false 15-year-old Grindr profile before a man was assaulted and robbed in Cairns. Nightingall received 10 months’ imprisonment with immediate parole.

Other similar attacks have emerged nationally, including those documented teenagers sentenced in Perth, arrests across Victoria and investigations in Canberra, where victims were allegedly deceived through dating apps before being ambushed, assaulted, robbed or filmed.