Teacher 'powerless' to stop ex-girlfriend's cyberstalking

A Vancouver teacher says his career has been derailed by an ex-girlfriend who wont stop posting countless defamatory and offensive comments about him on the web.

"I feel not only shut out of my own professionbut any job I apply for," said Lee David Clayworth, 35, who has applied for several teaching jobs since January, with no positive response.

He believes prospective employers are turned off by the web postings. "This is a dark place. Its a very, very dark place to be and I am powerless."

He said he's been cyberstalked relentlessly for 2 years, despite a court ruling ordering the material be removed and his ex-girlfriend jailed for contempt of court.

"The secondary part of itwhere the court order is enforcedpeople just ignore it," he said.

Clayworth is a Canadian who dated a woman named Lee Ching Yan for several months while he wasteaching in Malaysia in 2010.

Theft, hacking and harassment

After they split up, she broke into his apartment and stole his laptop and hard drive, along with other personal belongings.

She then hacked into his email account and sent messages to all of his contactsposing as himtalking about how he had sex with underage students.

"Little did I know, this was just the beginning of this campaign of harassment and cyberstalking," said Clayworth, who has several glowing references indicating he is an exemplary teacher.

"The support I received from my [former] school, from colleagues, from students, from my principal, from my deputy principal was incredible."

Court documents show Yanretrieved nude photos of Clayworththatwere in his computerpictures she had takenand posted them on several sites.

Shes also placed hundreds of comments on various social media sites, accusing him of disgusting, even criminal, behaviour.

"I did a Google search of my name and I saw profiles listed saying I am a psychopath, I am a child molester,a pedophile, I am involved with my students and so onand then that just steamrolled," said Clayworth.

"I remember waking up in the morning and going online. Two hundred new postings would be there from throughout the night. And the things they said were the most hurtful."

Useless court rulings

He sued Yan in Malaysia, where the judge found her guilty of defamation and ordered her pay him the equivalent of $66,000 in damages. However, the harassment didnt stop.

"Wed both be in court for proceedings and, you know, four hours later, she would be at it again. Online, posting stuff," said Clayworth.

The judge then ordered Yan imprisoned for contempt of courtfor continuing her smear campaignbut she left the country. Clayworth believes shes now in Australia.

"Everything that was digital and saved in my lifewhether it was in the hard drive or laptopis just at the disposal of this woman," said Clayworth, who returned to Canada in January when his contract at the Malaysian school ended.

"It will never stop it will go on and on. Its been almost 2 years now."

The court also ordered search engine providers Google, Yahoo and Bing to block Clayworths name from being searchable, but that has also proved unenforceable.

Hes sent the court order to all three companies, but said hes had no positive response.

"There are people out there who could help me out and Ive been through the proper channels to be helped out. And people just ignore it."

Go Public contacted the search engine providers, but only Google sent a response.

Google no help

"Googles search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web. Users who want content removed from the internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly," said spokesperson Wendy Bairos.

"We do not remove content from our search results, except in very limited cases such as illegal content and violations of our webmaster guidelines."

When Yanwas told the Malaysian court deemed the postings were illegal, Bairos suggested that didnt make any difference.

"Again, even if we did remove the name it would not make the content disappear from other places on the web, since Googles search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web."

Clayworth said hes also tried to get the posts removed from various websites, with limited success. Some sites didnt respond, while others were helpful.

The manager of one siteliarsandcheaters.comgot very upset when Clayworth complained to the site's web host company, whichthen shut it down temporarily.

"Do you really want to start a war with a website that sometimes gets over [20,000] visits a day?" wrote the manager.

"You may send the court order.However, because of you, we are relocating to Germany so it must be from a German court. That was your choice. In the meantime the post will remain permanently for the rest of your life."

Even when websites havetaken the offensive posts down, Clayworth's ex-girlfriend simply puts them back up, he said.

Authorities outpaced

Lawyers and police told Go Public there is little recourse for victims in Clayworth'sshoes, because his court orders are from Malaysia.

Halifax internet law expert David Fraser pointed out thatAmerican-based service providers and websites are governed by U.S. law, which protects freedom of expression and does not hold them legally responsible for content users post.

"These companies have a very large user base and have a large number of complaints, many of which are frivolous, and they have to filter through them."

He said sites often do remove posts voluntarily, butin most cases only a U.S. judgmentforces them to do it.

"If its a judgment that is contrary to U.S. public policy you may be completely out of luck," he said. "They will tend to err on the side of leaving it up because they are going to err on the side of freedom of expression."

Fraser said he has never heard of a search engine blocking someones name from being searchable, as the court ordered Google and others to do in this case.

Clayworth also went to Vancouver police, hoping it could get Interpol involved, to eventually get an international arrest warrant issued for Yang.

Det. Mark Fenton told Go Public the best they could do is initiate a whole new investigation andif they could get the Crown to approve a chargeissue a Canada-wide warrant for Yan's arrest.

That wouldnt help Clayworth, though, because Yan is not in Canada. "The authorities really arent interested," he said.

Fenton said police share his frustration. He said the numerous legal and jurisdictional obstacles they face make it almost impossible to help victims of internet harassment, even when both parties are in Canada.

"The internet and society has moved at such a fast pace, that government and law enforcement are unable to keep pace," said Fenton. "This is a huge mess and it feels awful."

As bad as it is for him, Clayworth feels worse for young peoplelike his former studentswho are increasingly victimized.

"I know what it was like to walk into school as the teacher who has got this going onso for a teenager I can only imagine," he said.

"Now, the internet is like a hunting ground, basically. Where you can just throw anybody you want up there that you dont like and let the whole world rain down on them. Its an insane concept."

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