• A Canterbury woman discovered her Tinder match, Blake Ivan Miller, was on home detention for child sex offences.
• In 2024, Miller pleaded guilty to sexual violation and indecent acts.
• His Tinder match, a sexual assault survivor, warned others after learning the truth about Miller’s past.

A Canterbury woman who started seeing a man she met on Tinder was shocked to find out - months later - that he was using a “fake” name and was on home detention for child sex offending.

She said Blake Ivan Miller told her he was on home detention for “poaching” or “trespassing” and when she learned the truth and confronted him, he claimed media reports about his offending, were “made up” with “only the slightest bit of the truth”.

The woman - herself a sexual assault survivor - said she was shocked and disgusted to find out who she was really seeing and wanted to protect other women from the same experience.

In July 2024, the Herald revealed Miller, then 19, had been sentenced to 10 months’ home detention after pleading guilty to three charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and one of doing an indecent act on a child.

In the Timaru District Court, Judge Michael Crosbie described Miller’s offending as “serious and depraved” and the most “unusual” circumstances he had encountered in more than 20 years on the bench.

All published details of the offending Miller admitted, his sentencing and the judge’s comments came from official court records of the prosecution.

Miller was facing up to seven years in prison for what the judge said was “extremely serious” offending; however, 75% of the sentence was cut due to his personal circumstances, including his age, “developmental issues and depression”.

Blake Ivan Miller admitted "depraved" sexual offending on a young girl. Photo / Supplied

The Herald can reveal that Miller’s home detention finished at the end of March.

While he was serving that sentence, he was using a dating app under the name Ivan and seeing at least one woman.

“I originally matched him on Tinder in about September of last year,” she told the Herald.

“I met him… He said he was moving to Australia and that he didn’t want anything serious and I didn’t really hear from him again.,

“Then in October or November, he matched me on Tinder again, and then we started talking again because apparently he wasn’t moving to Australia.

“He said that he was on an ankle bracelet for going hunting with his two friends, and they got done for poaching. I didn’t really question it because it seemed like an honest story.”

One day at Miller’s family home - where he lives with his parents - the woman got “a really bad feeling” about him and decided to check his ID.

“I confronted him and he said that he uses his middle name because that’s what he’s just grown up being called,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s true because walking around his house they’ve got a chore chart in their kitchen that has all the kids’ names on it and his name is Blake on there,” she said.

The woman matched with convicted sex offender Blake Miller on the dating app Tinder. Photo / 123RF

She was “blindsided” but gave Miller the benefit of the doubt at the time.

“I just let it slide…. and then I was at home one day and he had been texting me and I got another really bad feeling about it, so I googled his name, she said.

“I was an absolute mess. I text him, confronting him and he said ‘I was going to tell you when I trusted you enough’ and that ‘the media made it bigger than it is’.”

The woman provided the Herald with screenshots of her conversation with Miller.

She told him:

“I am so upset about everything. The fact you have lied to me so much and have not been honest and (secondly) I am a victim of sexual assault myself. I just don’t get it.”

He replied:

“I have not lied to you as much as you think… in the end of it, it all comes down to perspective, there’s always two sides to everything.

“Hadn’t told you the full truth yet because I needed you to get to know me more than just saying it straight up. In life there’s a time and a place to do so. As you have potential, I was planning to have a sit down with you and talk?”

She asked Miller to explain his “side”.

He said:

“All I can say is that the woman that made this article with only the slightest bit of truth, they made up 80%. They do this to pull the other side in and for them to retaliate and say ‘that’s not right’.

“(What) I’m trying to get at is it is so much bigger (than) what you have seen from… that reporter.

Miller contends information published about him was 80% untrue. However all information was provided by the court. Photo / NZME

The woman asked Miller to tell her what happened and told him to “be honest”.

He said:

“Oh don’t worry I am full honest. Yes I did sa (sexually assault) an under aged a year and a half ago. I’ve gone through the process,” he said.

The woman asked Miller:

“Why did you do it then?? What was going through your head to hurt a child like that? I’m trying to understand how that is possible ok?"

He said:

“It is so much bigger than you see right now. But it’s not ok, ok.”

Miller later told the woman “nothing changes” between them and he was “still the guy you met a couple of weeks ago”.

“You won’t understand it right now. To truly sum it up, is that I (wasn’t) the person I am now. I was in a pretty bad place which I have pulled myself out of - hence there is no restrictions on where and when I go to places. They understand what I’ve gone through.

Miller's Tinder profile. The woman he was seeing confirmed he was a convicted sex offender. Photo / Supplied

The woman said Miller wanted to explain everything to her in person, so he drove to her house.

“He didn’t try to explain it all.. He just kind of just built another story over it… he kind of just made me feel like the media made it into something that wasn’t, that it wasn’t true.”

Soon after that, the women decided to stop seeing and communicating with Miiler.

“He kept texting me, and then I blocked his number.

“It just makes me feel sick… I was completely just like utterly blindsided by the facts of what he’d done and all the lies that I was fed… and then obviously once I found out and he tried to make me think that it was everyone else’s fault, but not his.”

The woman said Miller had done his time for his offending and could do what he liked with his life.

But she was concerned he would continue being dishonest, and she felt compelled to raise awareness.

“I’m speaking out because I’m a survivor of sexual assault myself, and I was going through the courts the whole time I was speaking to him,” she said.

“It makes me sick to think that if he can do it to me, he’ll do it again… if I can fall into thinking he’s an amazing person, someone else will.

“It’s quite shocking… I was just so brainwashed into thinking that everything was fine and happy and dandy when it wasn’t.”

The mother of Miller’s victim was disgusted that he had been on Tinder while on home detention.

After sentencing, she said his punishment “is not justice - just a nice long holiday for him”.

“My comment implied Blake would be on PlayStation... didn’t think it would include a Tinder romance,” she said.

“This just feels like it was an even weaker sentence... I feel failed.”

The Herald sought comment from Miller through his lawyer, Adam Holland.

“Mr Miller was 18 years old when he admitted his offending and took responsibility for his actions through the entry of early guilty pleas,” he said.

“He has worked assiduously to rehabilitate himself and there was nothing in his sentencing conditions that prevented him from joining sites such as Tinder.

“He apologises if he caused any upset to the individual he spoke to through Tinder and I have advised him to not make any further comment.”

Tinder’s rules state, “you must not be a sex offender” to use the app.

A spokesperson for the app could not say if Miller’s profile would be removed or what would be done to prevent him from setting up accounts in other names.

“While I’m unable to comment on specific accounts… to the question of creating new/additional accounts - we utilise a network of industry-leading automated and manual moderation and review tools, systems and processes to prevent, monitor and remove bad actors who have violated our terms,” he said.

“These tools include automatic scans of profiles for red-flag language and images, manual reviews of suspicious profiles, activity, and user-generated reports, as well as blocking email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses and other identifiers to help prevent users from creating new accounts.”

He said Tinder takes user safety seriously and is “committed to maintaining a positive and safe platform”.

“We do not tolerate any inappropriate misconduct,” he said.

“All users are subject to the same terms of use and community guidelines.

“If a user contacts us to report any bad online or offline behaviour, our team carefully reviews the report and takes the necessary action to remove any inappropriate profiles from our platform.

“We continue to invest in safety, which includes building innovative new safety products and features to help keep the platform safe.”

Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 19 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz