I was targeted by vile stalker – it ruined by marriage after he accused me of sleeping with my husband’s DAD
A MUM who was targeted by an evil stalker saw her marriage fall apart after he accused her of sleeping with her father-in-law.
Kristen Dugdale, from Essex, was victim to a vile monster, branded Britain’s worst cyberstalker, and claimed the nightmare nearly ruined her life.
Netflix’s Can I Tell You A Secret? stalker Matthew Hardy first reached out to his 31-year-old target in 2019.
He approached the mum-of-one via an anonymous Instagram account and told her he had important information about her husband at the time.
Over a two year period, Hardy would go on to accuse Kristen of having sex with her husband’s dad, and sold explicit content of her online.
He created accounts posing as Kristen with her modelling photographs and contacted people who she used to work for and go to school with.
Hardy would also degrade the 31-year-old over the phone, verbally abusing her multiple times a day from different numbers.
On other occasions he would stay silent and Kristen would only hear breathing on the other end of the line.
Kristen started to isolate herself from people in her life as she became paranoid her stalker was someone she knew.
This would damage her marriage, which eventually ended in divorce.
Despite reporting the harassment to police, Hardy didn’t stop until he was arrested in 2020, and charged the following year for crimes unrelated to Kristen.
Hardy pleaded guilty to stalking involving fear of violence and harassment after breaking a restraining order against nine victims.
Can I Tell You A Secret?
Netflix’s Can I Tell You A Secret? was released in February this year.
The two-part docuseries focuses on real-life victims Jade Hallam, Abby Furness and Lia Marie Hambly.
They detail the horror of being targeted by Hardy, who stalked and harassed women for 11 years.
He would spread malicious lies about their personal lives and even pose as his victims online while having sexually explicit conversation.
A report by the Guardian suggested he did this to “hundreds” of women.
Hardy was arrested 10 times over the 11 years before he was sentenced to jail.
Everything changed when victim Jade Hambly shared more than 700 pages of evidence of her own abuse with a Cheshire police constable.
The Netflix series tile, Can I tell you a secret? originates from the question Hardy would start an online conversation with.
The Netflix limited series is based on a podcast of the same name by the Guardian’s Sirin Kale.
Jade Hallam was stalked by Hardy and her friends and family also become victims of abuse.
Hardy posed online as Hallam’s boyfriend’s father, a doctor, and had explicit conversations with teenage girls using fake social media accounts in her boyfriend’s dad’s name.
Fellow target Abby Furness had rumors spread about her sex life.
Hardy pretended to be her online, initiated sexual conversations with her colleague and sent explicit images of her to her boss.
The vile stalker also told her then-boyfriend she’d been cheating on him, leading to their breakup.
Meanwhile, Lia Marie Hambly was stalked both online and harassed over phone.
It was Hambly’s complaint about Kent police’s handling of her case that saw it passed to constable Kevin Anderson, who saw it through to conviction.
He was jailed for nine years at Cheshire Crown Court.
However, it is believed Hardy’s real total of victims reached up to 63 over an 11 year period.
Mum-of-one Kristen told Cheshire Live Hardy had initially pretended to be a woman from Manchester when he first contacted her.
He implied she had slept with her ex-husband’s best friend.
She said: “I was scared for my life at one point.
“I lost my confidence and my trust in people around me.
“I ended up getting into a lot of arguments with my ex over it. It affected our relationship and was a contributing factor to the breakdown of our marriage.
“I was so affected, I had to quite my job as a model.”
Kristen said the ordeal made her start “questioning everyone”.
The former model said Hardy knew the names of her friends and family which made her think it was someone in her life.
But the stalker eventually started contacting people from his own Facebook account.
He messaged her and her ex-partner’s dad directly to claim they were sleeping with each other.
Kristen last spoke to Hardy on October 26, 2020 to tell him she had contacted the police.
She said: “I found it strange in the end how he didn’t even conceal his identity – it was like he wanted to get caught but thought he was invincible and nothing would happen.
“The last thing I said to him is I wouldn’t stop until he was in jail.
“I was very shocked by how high his sentence was – people do worse things and get less time, so I was happy with the sentence.”
But Kristen still felt there were “many hoops to jump through” to get help.
She claimed the police “didn’t believe me” and “had to do their job for them”.
“People need to be aware, and police need to take this kind of thing a bit more seriously,” added Kristen.
What is cyber stalking?
Online harassment and stalking is illegal in England and Wales.
Stalking is different from harassment as it involves fixation and includes repeated attempts to contact a person without permission in a way that could be expected to cause distress or fear.
Technology and social networking sites can help facilitate stalking and harassment, enabling offenders to impersonate others online or to send or post hostile messages to their victim.
It is important to remember that harassment and stalking can take many different forms and can include e-mails, instant messaging, images, chat rooms, forums or social networking sites.
If you believe that you are in immediate danger as a result of cyber stalking or cyber harassment, or there is a threat to your life, call 999.
Contact your local police if it’s not an emergency.
You can get advice from the National Stalking Helpline.
Telephone: 0808 802 0300
Monday to Friday, 9:30am to 4pm (except Wednesday 9:30am to 8pm)
The mum-of-one warned anyone who experiences cyberstalking to report it as soon as possible and gather evidence.
Police Constable Kevin Anderson from Northwich Local Policing Unit, said: “Having led on this case for more than 18 months I have seen the emotional distress and turmoil that Hardy has inflicted on his victims – he did all of this while hiding behind his computer screen.
“The impact on those affected by his actions has been immense, causing some of them to change some of their daily habits, and live in constant fear that they were being watched.
“On other occasions, it caused them to lose trust in their friends and family members and even led to the breakdown of long-term relationships.
“Thankfully, Hardy has now been held accountable for his actions, and his online activity has finally been brought to a stop.
“I hope that the conclusion of this case will provide some closure for his victims and enable them to rebuild and move forward with their lives.”