When a man dubbed Britain’s worst cyberstalker targeted former model Kirsten Dugdale, 31, her world fell apart. Today, the single mum from Essex opens up about her nightmare ordeal. 5 Stalker Matthew Hardy was finally jailed in 2022 HEARING the familiar “ping” notification, I reached for my phone to see a weird message from a stranger.
“Liv” wrote: “I’ve got something to tell you, followed seconds later by: “You’re with Joe*, aren’t you? It’s about him.” It was February 2019 and the Instagram messages were the beginning of an online campaign of terror that would see me lose friends, my job and even fear for my sanity. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was just one of serial cyberstalker Matthew Hardy’s many victims.
READ MORE ON CYBERSTALKERS LIVING HELL Cyberstalker set out to destroy me but Wagatha Christie inspired me to find him STALKER HELL Noughties popstar stalker catfished fans for sex chats in 15 year campaign Some of Hardy’s crimes and how he was finally tracked down became the focus of the hit Netflix documentary, Can I Tell You A Secret?. The day that first message arrived, I had been dating my partner Joe, 35, for four years. He’s an accountant and we met through Tinder.
We lived together in Wiltshire and I trusted him completely. But the fact a total stranger knew him by name turned my stomach upside down. I instantly panicked and started to think the worst.
Had he been unfaithful or had something happened to him? Most read in F.
