A social media feud that escalated into an in-person brawl on the streets of Sydney’s south has ended with a TikTok escort being arrested by police while discussing the incident on a livestream.
Sata Dawo — known on social media and adult service websites as Chanel Monroe — abruptly ended her TikTok livestream at 6pm on Saturday when NSW Police arrived at her Caringbah apartment block.
Police allege that less than an hour earlier, Dawo, 27, had gone with two men — one of whom was allegedly armed with an electric stun device — to a local car business, where there was a confrontation with two other men.
Video of the incident posted to TikTok shows Dawo, a mother-of-four, sitting in the front seat of a white SUV as multiple men clash on the road around her car, before a man attempts to rip the front passenger door off her vehicle.
Dawo and two other men ultimately left the scene, but police found her a short time later at her nearby apartment and charged her with assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company and affray.
After a night in the cells at Sutherland Police Station, the 27-year-old faced the NSW Bail Court, which heard the conflict involving her “stemmed from some form of social bullying”, but that no “physical violence” was alleged to have been committed by her.
“What she was going there to talk to these people about was the online abuse that she was receiving,” Dawo’s solicitor, Steven Mercael, told the court.
“She recorded part of this incident initially. She did not go there with the intention of getting in a fight.”
The fight set corners of Sydney’s TikTok scene abuzz on Saturday night, with individuals on both sides livestreaming in the aftermath.
In fact Dawo was streaming a chat with two other individuals when police arrived to arrest her.
“Are youse all right boys,” she could be heard on the video yelling down to the officers.
“F**k me there’s three cop cars,” she then said to her livestream counterparts, one of who responded by saying: “Ha you’re f**ked, you’re f**ked”.
“Alright guys, I gotta go, I love youse,” Dawo said, before the stream ended abruptly.
The court heard Dawo was currently two months pregnant.
While the prosecution opposed bail being granted, Dawo’s solicitor Mr Mercael told the court that in addition to her pregnancy there were a number of other factors which should support her being released.
They included her mental health history and the fact she had aided police to identify the two men allegedly by her side during Saturday’s incident. They have not been charged.
Acting Judge Susan McGowan ultimately granted Dawo bail, but not before banning her from using social media and ordering her to reappear at Sutherland Local Court on August 27.
Police on Sunday continued to investigate the incident and hunt the two other alleged attackers, who they described as being of “African appearance, aged between 20-30 years”.