Face of Alice Springs crisis in 7-month campaign of hate against rival

Controversial Outback nurse Rachel Hale has narrowly avoided jail for terrorising a beauty salon rival with menacing messages and a torrent of fake damaging reviews on Facebook and Instagram.

The vile messages posted by Hale – who became the face of the Alice Springs crime crisis last month – include calling her 26-year-old victim a ‘fat f***’, mocking her skills, saying she ran a ‘dirty shop’ and ‘you damage and scar clients’.

Police seized 77 pages of screenshots intended to destroy Josie-Anne Fritts’s career as a beautician in the remote Northern territory town. 

Hale also got a male friend to post a review claiming Ms Fritts was ‘one of the worst liars about her experience I’ve ever met’ and was ‘never to be trusted with your skin’.

Many of the texts, emails and derogatory reviews obtained by Daily Mail Australia were posted under Hale’s fake Instagram and Facebook profiles under the name ‘Gemma White’.

Outback nurse Rachel Hale carried out an ‘outrageous’ campaign of harassment against the 26-year-old beautician who set up a rival salon, said the judge who sentenced her to a six month suspended jail term

Hale, 45, targeted Josie-Anne Fritts (above) after the 26-year-old ran a ‘dirty shop’ and ‘you damage and scar clients’ and was ‘never to be trusted with your skin’

Hale’s revenge campaign began when the younger beautician ceased working as a dermal therapist for Hale’s business, Alice Laserthetics, and started up at a competing business, Eco Beauty Lounge.

The NT court documents state that Hale kept 134 images relating to Ms Fritts and a telephone contact list including the victim’s phone numbers in files Hale labelled ‘Josie D***head’ and ‘Josie-Fat F***’.

The NT Police Statement of Facts says that 45-year-old Hale’s hate campaign caused Ms Fritts to lose clients, money and her position at Eco Beauty.

This prompted Hale to send Ms Fritts a belittling text about a post on her Facebook business page, saying ‘Hilarious! Globally trained … thanks for the laugh! 

‘Eco Beauty turned out well for you? Ah must be very difficult to burn so many bridges in a small town … the way clients talk about you is very amusing. Good luck – you’ll need it’.

Hale, 45, pleaded guilty in Darwin Local Court on Thursday to bombarding Ms Fritts with ‘menacing, harassing and offensive’ messages.

Labelling her conduct as ‘outrageous’, Judge Ben O’Loughlin sentenced her to six months in prison, but wholly suspended the term for a period of two years.

Hale is the cosmetic surgery specialist who filmed Indigenous youth on the streets from her Alice Springs hotel room last month, then claimed they were running riot because they were raped and beaten at home. 

Her videos of teens punching and spitting on patrons at Alice Springs’ Diplomat Hotel briefly made her the face of the remote Northern Territory town’s  crime crisis, drawing praise from Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and others.

It has since emerged that Hale filmed the melee while visiting to give clients injectable and laser beauty treatments for her Alice Laserthetics business, which still operates a clinic and describes her as a ‘Cosmetic Injector’ and Cosmetic Nurse Rachel.

Outback nurse Rachel Hale (left) , the face of Alice Springs’ crime crisis, set up the fake profile Gemma White (right) to write vile reviews of 26-year-old Josie Fritts and destroy her career as a beautician in the town

When 26-year-old Josie Fritts left Eco Beauty Lounge (above) to start her own business, Rachel Hale got a man to post reviews saying ‘Globally trained … you haven’t left Alice Springs. One of the worst liars about her experience. Never to be trusted with your skin’

Darwin Local Court heard that Hale had employed Ms Fritts at her clinic between May and August 2021 before their business relationship became toxic and woman resigned and ‘stole the client list’.

A seven-month hate campaign by Hale ensued up until April 2022, and when the younger cosmetician begged her to stop, Hale laughed at her and lodged a fake Covid report to have Ms Fritts’ salon shut down.

By that time, Josie Fritts had started her own beauty business, Paramedink Cosmetic & Paramedical Tattoo Studio, and used Facebook and Instagram to promote it.

On the afternoon of January 18 last year – which was at the height of the Northern Territory’s Covid outbreak – Hale impersonated Ms Fritts by submitting a statutory declaration to the NT Government in her name.

The forged document, using Ms Fritts’ name, date of birth and contact details , stated that said she was infected which Covid, which would shut down her salon and force her into isolation. 

Image from one of the videos Rachel Hale filmed from her Alice Springs hotel in January, later claiming the unruly children spitting on hotel patrons were abused in their homes, as she visited the town to conduct cosmetic treatments

Nurse Rachel Hale (above) arriving at Darwin court on Thursday to plead guilty to three charges, of forgery, making a false declaration and using a carriage service to harass, just weeks after she filmed youths from her Alice Springs hotel  

When Ms Fritts asked Hale to stop sending messages to her and to her business, Hale texted: ‘Lol. I have no idea what you’re talking about’.

Evidence seized by police included Hale’s messages to a male friend, Scott Richards, asking him to post a fake bad review, saying ‘do your worst. This is that fat b****h who stole from me in Alice’. 

After Richards replied, ‘you write it and I’ll cut paste’, Hale asked ‘Can you do a review stating that she’s a lying and deceiving, unskilled individual’.

Richards, using a Facebook Messenger account in the name of Mike Teixeira, posted a review on Ms Fritt’s Paramedink studio Facebook page, saying ‘Globally trained … you haven’t left Alice Springs. 

‘Para-medical you have zero medical training. One of the worst liars about her experience I’ve ever met.

‘She is NOT a dermal therapist. Burns bridges wherever she goes. Never to be trusted with your skin’ 

After Hale pleaded guilty in Darwin Local Court to three charges – using a carriage service to menace, harass and offend, forgery and making a false declaration – Hale’s lawyer Ray Murphy told the court his client had been provoked.

He said that when Hale’s relationship with Ms Fritts foundered, the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal had ordered the 26-year-old to pay $700 to Hale.

Mr Murphy said this was because NTCAT had ruled that when Ms Fritts resigned, she had deleted a week of bookings and consent forms and stolen the client list.

Mr Murphy said Hale had worked at Darwin’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, in Berrimah prison, and in drug and alcohol services, but primarily had been a self-employed cosmetic nurse for years. 

Outback nurse Rachel Hale  who claimed Alice Springs youth were violent on the streets because they were being raped and beaten at home has been convicted of three offences

Hale described her ‘terrifying night’ recording numerous videos, after which she spoke out about the sexual abuse of children in remote Indigenous communities.

He said her ‘antipathy’ over the business break-up with Ms Fritts had fuelled the ‘ongoing campaign of harassment’ by Hale, a mother of two.

Prosecutor Charlotte Maybery-Reupert said Ms Hale’s campaign to destroy her rival’s business was especially dangerous in such a small town as Alice Springs.

Ms Fritts told police that Hale has ‘done everything in her power to ensure the destruction of my livelihood, my reputation and my business.

‘I now live in constant fear and stress of the next thing she can do to harm me,’ she said.

NT Police facts say Ms Fritts has ‘suffered emotional and  mental exhausting … and it has affected her social life due to the damaging comments’. 

On sentencing Rachel Hale, Judge O’Loughlin said ‘what she has done is outrageous … an ongoing campaign of harassment apparently to intentionally inflict damage’.

Hale came to prominence in January after claiming she ‘feared for her life’ while filming dozens of young people causing chaos on the streets below her hotel room.  

See also  A Place in The Sun host Jonnie Irwin - who has terminal cancer - will celebrate his 'last Christmas'

It is unclear whether the charges against Rachel Hale (above) in Darwin Local Court have any connection with Ms Hale’s recent online battle with trolls which followed her posting numerous videos of Alice Springs teenagers

‘Can anyone confirm if Rachel Hale has ever worked as a nurse (no not a cosmetic nurse) in Alice Springs?’ one person questioned on Facebook.

She later claimed the main reason kids were on the street was because of their deplorable home lives and vicious sexual assaults in the communities which she had witnessed during 14 years of nursing in the NT. 

Much of the town’s violence has been blamed on the lifting of alcohol bans in Aboriginal communities outside of Alice Springs in July last year. 

The bans have since been reinstated after a national outcry.