Every day, Kristen received messages from an obsessed stalker. Who was he and why was he trying to destroy her life?
Sinking on to my sofa, I grabbed my phone and logged on to my favourite app, Instagram.
I found scrolling through friends’ photos and stories a relaxing way to pass
the time.
But I used Instagram for my work, too.
As a model and webcam girl, I posted glamorous photos to help grow my business.
As the app opened up, I noticed I had a new message.
Clicking on it, I saw it was from a girl I didn’t recognise.
Are you going out with Joe?
it said.
Joe was my boyfriend.
Yes, I am, I replied, confused.
After a few more messages back and forth, the girl dropped
a bombshell.
I know you slept with his friend, the stranger wrote.
I stared at my phone in disbelief.
Wow, who tells lies like that about someone they don’t even know? I thought.
I blocked the girl but then more messages started popping up from different profiles.
Some were from women, but soon those dwindled and it was one name that kept appearing in my inbox: Matthew Hardy.
I racked my
brain to work out
if I knew him.
But I drew a blank and had no idea why he was bombarding me.
One day, after blocking him, Matthew messaged me again.
I’m not going anywhere, he’d typed.
I shuddered. I had no idea who he was or how much he knew about me.
What did he want?
Soon, things started to escalate.
One day, my boyfriend said he had something to tell me.
‘My dad said he got a message from someone called Matthew,’ he said.
‘He told Dad he knows you slept with him,’ he said.
‘That’s so embarrassing,’ I cringed.
His dad was in his 70s.
‘Tell him to ignore him, he’s a weirdo,’ I said, feeling humiliated.
I kept blocking Matthew, but hours later, he would simply make a new profile.
I know where you live, Kristen, he messaged one night.
It was so sinister. I felt constantly on edge.
'I know where you live, Kristen'
I started second-guessing everyone I knew and looked over my shoulder when I was out.
I would lie in bed at night
and jump when my phone beeped, wondering what he would say next.
One night, a car pulled up outside my house at 1am.
I couldn’t sleep, terrified Matthew was watching me.
It affected my relationships and I fell out with friends, wondering if they were waging a covert campaign of harassment against me.
He knew things about me I’d only ever told loved ones.
‘What if he’s hacked my phone?’ I confided in my dad Andy. ‘Or worse, my webcam and he’s spying on me?’
‘Just block him and hopefully he will get the message, love,’ he said.
But it didn’t seem to stop him.
Work and my earnings dried up, too, because I was afraid
of putting myself out there on social media.
One day, I got a call from a friend.
‘Do you have another profile?’ she asked. Then she sent a link to an Instagram page with my photo on it. ‘I think you should see this.’
‘No, that’s not mine,’ I gasped.
When I clicked on the page with my stolen photos, there was a link to a sex site.
I knew there was only one person that could be behind it — Matthew.
But that wasn’t all he’d done. He’d sent explicit photos of a naked woman to 20 of my friends, claiming it was me.
I felt so ashamed.
He’d gone too far.
I took screenshots of all his creepy messages and contacted the police.
‘Take down all your social media profiles,’ I was told.
But it didn’t seem fair that I should have to do that. As well as keeping in touch with friends, it was vital for my work.
One day, I got a message from a photographer I’d previously worked with on a shoot.
Are you still free for the session on Saturday? he said.
We don’t have a booking, I replied, confused.
I shook my head in disbelief as he told me he’d been talking to someone who claimed they were me.
Not only that, the imposter had been flirting with the photographer and insinuating I wanted to mix business with pleasure.
It was humiliating.
It’s Matthew, I thought, my blood boiling.
I’m sorry but that wasn’t me, I explained to the photographer.
A few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.
I was delighted, but Matthew’s harassment caused me severe stress.
I became paranoid and mistrustful, fuelled by not knowing who was behind the account.
After my baby girl was born,
I became frightened he would hack into my phone and see photos of her.
At my wits’ end, I went back to the police.
‘He’s caused me two years of misery,’ I cried.
‘We’re investigating,’ the officer assured me, promising to keep in touch. ‘We believe there are other victims.’
I was shocked he had targeted more people.
Thankfully, the torrent of messages died down, until they stopped altogether.
In time, police informed me they had charged him.
I was relieved, but his court date kept getting delayed.
I thought he was going to plead not guilty, so I mentally prepared myself to give evidence.
Only, one day, I opened my emails to see one from the detective.
'I became paranoid and mistrustful'
Matthew Hardy pleaded guilty to stalking involving fear of violence and harassment after breaching a restraining order and he’s been jailed for nine years, he had written.
I gasped, taken aback by the length of the sentence.
It showed how seriously Chester Crown Court had taken the 30-year-old’s offences.
As I learnt what he’d put some of the other women through, I nodded in recognition.
Hardy not only relentlessly messaged his targets, but also created fake accounts to pose as them or as their close friends and family to spread lies.
He also often alluded to affairs.
He had contacted one victim’s neighbour on her wedding day to falsely claim she had slept with her groom!
It was bizarre and frightening behaviour that
had the potential to destroy relationships.
Afterwards, PC Kevin Anderson, who led the investigation, said the impact of his crimes had been ‘immense’ and had caused some of the women ‘to change some of their daily habits and live in constant fear that they were being watched’.
He added: ‘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.’
Accepting Hardy’s guilty plea, Judge Steven Everett said social media firms ‘do not seem to care very much’ about whether their users were ‘able to safely use their accounts’.
I couldn’t agree more and think there should be tighter restrictions and better security processes.
Hardy put me through more than two years of hell and made me question everyone I knew.
I hope he spends his time behind bars reflecting on the consequences of his actions.
Kristen Dugdale, 31