The pair began messaging each other every day and, at Grott's request, the teenager sent him the naked photos. But whenever she suggested they meet up, he always made excuses.
After about a year, when she was 16, she began seeing another man - a real one. This infuriated Grott, who created a false email account and sent obscene messages in her name to the principal of her school.
He also posted Johnston's photos on online dating sites and sent a USB stick containing the photos to her uncle. And he began tracking her movements, sending her messages telling her he knew where she was and what she was wearing. It was at that point that she contemplated suicide.
"He just drove me to that point where I didn't feel like I had any other escape," she said. "I was just over it. I didn't want to deal with it any more."
It was only when Aiken decided to go public with her story - a strikingly similar one to Johnston's - that she went to the police.
Grott, it transpired, had created an online identity based on photos stolen from a Melbourne pool cleaner, John Noonan, who is still trying to rebuild his reputation.
He told police he built the fake social media and dating profiles in order to monitor his own teenage daughters. "The last thing I wanted to do was hurt anyone," he claimed.
As well as posting naked pictures of Aiken online he racially abused the Jamaican netballer, who signed with the Queensland Firebirds in 2008.
