Hello?
Matthew.
Yeah?
Why?
What made you do it?
Fear.
Revenge?
A lot of people pissed me off.
So much confusion,
prolonged, relentless...
Web searches, SMS messages,
photographs...
iMessages.
There were absolutely thousands.
Too many to comprehend.
Chaos.
{an8}In nine, ten years,
officers have one big case in their career.
This is like... mine.
There was victims all over.
Hundreds of victims...
{an8}that we don't know about.
This had to be stopped.
He was a shadow.
But I found out who he was.
A guy called Matthew Hardy.
It wasn't long before I got another message.
Zoe. You awake?
Zoe?
So I called him out.
You know who I am.
Why are you doing this?
Why me? What are you trying to get out of it?
Guess who I'm texting now.
Mm?
He'd never give me an answer.
He didn't really care.
I was like, "What is he gonna do next?"
My friend and I logged on to do an Instagram Live.
People can join and comment. It's happy, like a really good vibe.
Morris, this odd account,
kept saying weird things.
Who is Morris?
Oh my God, I got that gut feeling, I...
All of a sudden,
a name came up.
This Morris had typed "Matthew Hardy."
I don't know anyone called Matthew Hardy.
Oh my God, like...
And when I typed in Matthew Hardy into Facebook,
{an8}this profile came up.
This guy seems a regular person.
Is this the Stalker man? I think it is, but is it?
He lived over 100 miles away
in a town in Cheshire called Northwich.
Who is Matthew Hardy?
I'd never even heard of Northwich.
- Do it! - Go on!
{an8}Hello?
{an8}Locals had smashed the windows of a house in town.
They were targeting someone called Matthew Hardy.
His mother had phoned the police.
It was, uh, to do with social media use.
When I started researching his name,
there was...
loads of occurrences there,
stretching all the way back to 2010.
I found that very strange.
I started delving a bit deeper.
It was quite clear the bulk of these were within my area.
One day...
I went round to my friend's house,
and she introduced me to her husband's nephew.
Just a normal person, you know.
But a little while later, all these messages started coming through,
fake accounts, impersonating people, spreading rumors.
You won't go mad if I tell you something?
Was asking what I did...
Are you doing a show? Where at?
...where I worked.
- Who with? - Wouldn't leave me alone.
He's been quite close to you in the past.
And it really upset me.
{an8}They all followed much the same MO.
"Hiya, babe, I've got a secret to tell you."
Quite innocent.
They all generated into
like a psychological warfare against the victim.
These messages will not leave me alone.
He wasn't just harassing me.
He was messaging friends and family, my boss.
He said a lot of shit about you.
He used to make up rumors about people,
about their families, about their parents, that would cause them to argue...
{an8}He was trying to say that we were some sort of, like, sexual attraction.
...saying that my mum had sexual relations with my boyfriend.
...his obsession with me, I was frightened.
Scared... I was shaking because I was so scared.
There was a lot of victims. He was putting them in fear.
{an8}I rang the police, but nothing ever happened.
I reported it numerous times.
I can't say once I was taken seriously on the matter at all.
No one was helping me.
Lots of investigations...
...but nothing has come of them.
I couldn't understand why this guy still was operating.
We needed to try and give reassurance to the victims.
We're taking them seriously.
We made our way out to his flat.
Plus, also, to try and confirm what they'd been saying
by seizing digital devices that he has.
We could tell he was inside because we could hear movement.
We took him into the kitchen.
There wasn't a lot of decor.
Very sparse.
It was clean and tidy
for someone who we believe is leading a chaotic lifestyle online.
There was nothing to suggest he was linking people up
and keeping a track of who he was looking at.
There was no Post-it notes.
No notebooks. There was nothing on the walls.
Very, very strange.
There was a tablet,
a Alcatel mobile phone.
He had a broadband router.
There was a SIM card holder.
We decided that we would do a number of interviews.
This interview is being conducted in interview room 3.
- Can you just state your full name? - It's Matthew Hardy.
- I've prepared a statement. - Okay.
His solicitor did give a prepared statement at the start of the interview.
I, Matthew Hardy, wish my solicitors to read out
my prepared statement on my behalf.
I am here today regarding a number of allegations.
I deny all of these allegations.
I do not recognize any of the names of the victims.
I do not use social media or my phone for texting very often
and only use them to contact family and friends.
Signed and dated today by Matthew.
You don't know how it's going to play out.
I was hoping that we could get him to admit what he did.
This is your chance to tell us your side of the story now.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Do you recognize any of those messages?
No comment.
- Have you created any of... - No comment.
"I know Lucy has sent you pics X. You fucked Lucy too XX."
No comment.
You remember sending messages like that?
No comment.
I'm going through my head. What have I got to do to chip away at you?
What is it that allows me to break you down a little?
Was it you saying you were "Hughsy Williamson"?
- No comment. - "Joshuahhh536."
No comment.
- "EastofNovember150." - No comment.
- "Tai Weir XXX." - No comment.
"Alicia_Craig." You ever heard of that?
No comment.
She was asked by the profile, "Did you bang my man back then?"
- "Yes or no?" - No comment.
She gets an Instagram message from her friend
telling her to stop private messaging her partner.
No comment.
Another fake Tinder profile offering escort services.
No comment.
She's contacted by a male she doesn't know
asking why she had not performed a sexual service
that he had paid 45 pounds for her to do.
No comment.
- Humiliated. - No comment.
- It's had a profound impact. - No comment.
Pictures of her and her daughter.
- No comment. - Caused her to stop going out
as she thought that this person was following her every move.
- Do you understand? - Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I understand a lot about what that person would feel like.
I get where they're coming from, how scared they might feel.
I've kind of had it done to myself, so...
My mum's property got badly damaged by a gang of thugs.
Pretty bad.
He was basically just saying, why was he there? It wasn't him.
You know, he seemed to be vulnerable.
People have been horrible to me
'cause of stuff what's gone on down the years.
It's all about that news article.
- Sorry, what's that? - It was on the Guardian from years ago.
How many years now?
Because of that news article. That's why my name's mentioned.
It's been a nuisance since it happened.
It was all plastered all over the paper, wasn't it?
Okay. I'm sorry. I can see I've made you upset.
Do you mind me asking why?
I'm branded this name, "Stalker."
- That's what upsets me, 'cause I'm not. - Okay.
I'm just quiet.
Just, like, if you knew me...
You give them the chance to tell you what it is they know.
It seemed to be a story in the past...
See, 'cause I've been stuck in such a rut for so long...
...that there was a school sort of involved.
People have had it in for me for so long.
Back then, at high school, me and Matthew were definitely similar.
It would be easy to class Matthew
as the stereotypical quiet techy guy in the corner who kept to himself,
so on and so forth, but...
there's more to what he was than just the kid that no one paid attention to.
There was more to him than that.
He could have been very different
if he'd had the chance to learn
how to be social, how to interact with people.
Matthew didn't really fit into class.
He spoke when he had to speak.
{an8}His nerves and his shyness, that kept him in his shell.
{an8}Because he was socially withdrawn, like, he was there but he weren't there.
I had precious few friends back then,
but Matthew I would have counted as a friend.
It was true for Matthew, and I dare say it was true for me,
that if you were different, you were unpopular,
and once you were unpopular, there was no way back out of it.
Back during those days, there was no talk of being on the spectrum.
It's something he didn't even know about himself back then.
Matthew didn't get his autism diagnosis until long after we both left school.
Many autistic people go through their life
without being diagnosed.
So he had a really bad experience growing up,
which led to a lot of social exclusion.
A lot of autistic people grow up without a diagnosis.
They don't want to be perceived as different or weird.
People report feeling like they don't know who they are
as they're growing up
because they spend so long suppressing themselves to other people,
and trying to fit in,
that they really don't have a sense of self.
There were large stands of trees planted all the way around the perimeter.
For the most part, the forests were where you went to vanish into
if you were cast out into the outskirts.
Growing up knowing that you're different to everyone else
and not being able to pinpoint why,
that can be really hard for an autistic person to deal with.
Matthew would frequently spend his time in the cover of trees.
He wanted to be a part of the group, but he didn't know how to do it.
Social media was becoming really big at the time.
Myself and other girls in my school
started receiving odd messages on Facebook.
We all realized fairly quickly that it was Matthew Hardy from school.
He was messaging a lot of girls from my year.
I would say, the majority.
Girls from my school would then,
"He did this to me. He messaged my dad, my mum."
And you're thinking, "What?"
I can't say I did find it very threatening because I did know Matthew
and, obviously, I knew what he was like in school.
However, the effect that it has on your life,
the people he would approach, for example,
your boss, people in your work,
that's quite threatening.
It did get you more worried, a lot more anxious.
In case he does something more sinister than watching us online.
{an8}It had been going on for me for a year and a half.
I was working at a garage in Northwich.
I was getting 60 phone calls a day, and it felt threatening.
My anxiety just got so much worse.
Other than work, I didn't leave the house anymore.
I got a text message.
It said...
Nice blue top.
It's a nice job you're doing, cleaning that car.
I'm obviously being watched.
This isn't just someone messing about anymore. I just felt sick...
...unsafe.
I didn't know what they were capable of, so I contacted the police.
Amy came into the office at Middlewich,
showing me these messages.
"Somebody I don't know, I don't know where they are,
but they are watching me, and here's the proof."
Put the phone number into the system, and there it was.
Matthew Hardy.
And he's given a restraining order,
that he's not to contact Amy.
So, if he makes any contact with her,
it results in a term in, uh, in prison.
And as far as I knew,
that was the last that anyone was gonna hear of Matthew Hardy.
He didn't care about the restraining order, that he had it.
And he just carried on.
One night, me and my boyfriend decided we would get a takeaway.
He said he'd grab it for us, and he'd be right back.
I locked the doors straightaway,
and I noticed that there was a man across the road...
and he was just stood there, on his own, just staring.
So the man came towards the van.
Why are you doing this to me?! Why are you doing this?!
For him to be screaming...
- Why you doing... - I just took it as he was angry
that I was still trying to report him.
It made me believe it was Matthew Hardy.
- Why?! - I wasn't sure.
- Why're you doing this to me? - Felt like I was going insane.
- You there! - Was it him?
Why are you doing this?! Why?
I don't know.
Why?! Why did you do this?!
Why have you done this?! Why?!
If anything goes wrong, obviously, I'm going to be to blame...
because of the past.
People just think the worst of me because I've got previous and such.
They probably read my story before, so...
- But it's a fact though, isn't it? - Oh, that was, previously, yeah.
He said to me he'd been brought to book in 2013,
but since then, nothing, effectively saying, he's stopped now.
Why would these people decide it was you?
- It could be a set-up. - Okay.
He's somebody I know, who's got something against me.
I probably have fake accounts set up as me as well.
That profile... has been accessing the internet using your router.
It's Wi-Fi connected. That is all I can say to that.
What you're saying is that someone else was using your router?
Yeah.
Could be anyone.
They'll pick it up in the flats. I live in a block of flats.
Okay.
You saying these people haven't received these messages?
I don't know if they have, but not from me, they haven't, so...
You're denying sending the messages?
Yeah.
Just my name's going around. Simple as that.
Right, I have no further questions to put to you, Matthew.
The interview is going to be terminated at 17:06.
And CPS came back to us to say, "We can't take this forward at this time."
"You don't have enough."
They were absolutely correct.
Was I wrong?
Have we even got the right guy?
I mean, he's telling me that someone is using his router,
that someone's creating profiles in his name.
That they're using an old newspaper article
to point the finger at him.
But who?
Who would be doing this?
Can I tell you a secret?
Police won't do anything.
Then, within a few days,
Matthew Hardy goes to a local supermarket and buys himself another phone.
He'd been lying.
{an8}Hiya.
Hello, you.
Can you help me with something?
Complete mind games.
Oh God, here we go.
It just seemed to snowball from there.
Hundreds of messages.
What you up to this evening?
Matthew made an account pretending to be my friend's father.
I have to think of somewhere to go.
And with that profile,
he was messaging girls, trying to meet them in car parks,
impersonating my friend's father.
Would love to if you fancy it.
Where is this escalating to now?
There's nothing that's going to stop him. Where is the limit?
What's up?
Stick to taking your clothes off.
It was clear his net was a lot wider than just Cheshire.
This person had to be stopped.
Stop all the madness. Stop what's going on.
Hello. It's Kevin Anderson from Cheshire Police.
Hi, sorry it's late.
It's Kevin Anderson from Cheshire Police.
Kevin Anderson, Cheshire Police.
This phone number called me, and I was really reluctant to pick it up.
This guy said that he was called Kevin, and that he was from Cheshire Police.
- Yeah, just a... - I was quite shocked.
I've never been to Cheshire. Cheshire is miles away from me.
I was thinking, "Why is Cheshire Police calling me?"
- Yeah, we... - He says, "You're not the only one."
"There's many girls involved."
I didn't know there were lots of girls involved.
To me, it was about trying to make sure
and convince them I am taking this seriously.
Kevin was different.
It felt like he cared.
Like, the relief I felt,
I was like, "Thank goodness, someone's here to help."
I hope I can take someone to court for you.
I hope I can move it forward and make your life better.
It was such a relief after two and a half years,
then, finally, someone was fighting my battle with me.
But I was looking at it thinking,
"How am I going to work my way around this?"
Because, firstly, the interview didn't really take us any further forward,
then, the phones we seized still have to be examined.
That would take a number of weeks.
Then, cybercrime wasn't an area I was familiar with.
Every few weeks, there was new cases coming in.
These cases just didn't have enough evidence.
It was going to be tough for me now to try and link everything together,
considering that he's released, and he's still doing it.
It continued and continued.
He didn't care at all.
He was creating fake accounts of me.
My friends were getting married,
and he messaged the brides pretending to be me...
It has to stay a massive secret.
...insinuating that I was accusing them of having affairs.
You know...
over the last few months with her...
You can't tell anyone.
It all sort of came to a head on the eve of the wedding.
Disguised as Lia, he'd managed to convince the groom
that his bride had been having sexual relations with his father,
which were totally untrue, but he'd managed to create that doubt.
He was doing it on WhatsApp
with my picture... and my name.
It was very, very strange.
It was clear, for some reason,
that Mr. Hardy had pursued her intentionally for something.
What that was, I don't know,
but he was going around her and her friends, family.
It was just horrendous for her, absolutely horrendous.
She didn't deserve what was happening to her at all.
He had no connection to her before it happened,
and she had no connection to him.
So why he singled her out, I still don't know.
Like a relentless machine
that just kept going,
and we haven't managed to stop it.
Sometimes you just can't.
Cases will fail.
Luckily, something happened...
{an8}One day, an old friend of mine,
he said that someone had been impersonating him on Instagram,
and he messaged me,
"Whoever it is has slipped up and accidentally recorded a live video
on a fake account of mine."
When I went to look at the screen recording...
I knew straightaway.
It was my friend's nephew, Matthew Hardy.
I've got you.
I know it's you, Matthew.
Don't know who he is.
Are you for real? It's just crazy.
So, I needed to go further.
I would call him,
record him, get him to admit what he'd done.
- Hello? - Hiya, Matthew.
Hiya, yeah.
I was going to try and befriend him,
{an8}so he could get some help,
{an8}go and see a psychiatrist.
You accidentally went live on that fake profile...
I get you.
- You have put me through a lot of shit. - What do you mean?
Making fake accounts up and...
I wish I knew why you do this to people or...
All this crap that I'm a stalker and all this shit.
I don't stalk anybody.
They class it as that, but it's not really stalking.
- Mm. - I don't stalk anyone, so...
I wanted you to get my trust,
because obviously with things that have gone on,
people do absolutely hate you,
and I thought I can get to be your friend, then you can trust.
- They don't understand me, that's why. - They don't understand?
They don't understand me, no.
Yeah.
Why? What makes you... What made you do it?
Was it boredom? Was it revenge?
Yeah. A lot of people pissed me off, so...
Sabrina disclosed to me a phone call.
Kevin, he came to mine. We did a statement.
He had a listen to it.
His voice is... is unique,
so as soon as she started playing it, I could tell that was him.
And he discloses quite a lot of things to her.
He doesn't admit what he's doing,
but in a roundabout way you can tell he's trying to admit what he's doing.
With that, he accidentally went live on an Instagram
where you could see his face right at the start of the clip.
And I took that away as part of the evidence to use.
With that, the phone downloads from his devices came back to me.
I was gobsmacked about the size of them.
There was anywhere up to 8,000-9,000 separate entries to go through.
Every time someone makes any type of contact through a phone network,
they will leave a digital footprint.
I contacted the mobile phone companies.
The phone connections
that were going to the nearest mast was in Northwich.
{an8}It showed the location of the phones
{an8}were in an area where Mr. Hardy's flat was.
Again, alone, not enough. They don't make the case for you.
It's about making the link to the victims
and say that there was a connection made from that router
that was in Mr. Hardy's house to the victim.
I knew it was him.
I just couldn't link it securely.
I felt we were running out of time.
This is my file of evidence. This is the evidence that I gathered.
At the time, I worked in an office, at a solicitor's,
and I done it like how I would have a court bundle.
When it came through and I opened it up,
it was like, "Oh my God, there's just so much of it."
It was almost like an investigation on its own.
So, it's screenshots of every account, every message,
every fake profile,
every picture that they used,
and now, let's say, there's about 700 or more pages there.
The amount of data that she was providing was phenomenal.
I just felt like no one was listening,
and I was scared as well, like,
if something did physically happen to me...
It's there.
Someone can... look at it.
Unfortunately, that's... the truth.
That, to me, was going to be the nugget.
We've now got evidence to make the links back to Mr. Hardy.
For example, there was a lot of pictures on his phone.
If I can get something that matches up,
then we've got a chance of going somewhere.
I could see somebody with dark hair.
I couldn't believe it. I recognized myself straightaway.
Now, there's no reason for those pictures to be on that phone
if this person's got no connection to Lia.
So I knew straightaway we've got a piece of evidence there.
Links, IP connections,
more links with some of the messages I managed to find on some of the phones.
They match up things from his phone to some of the victims
and more connections...
with Matthew Hardy.
We've now got a chance here.
I was actually visiting somebody, and I had to excuse myself.
I said, "I'm expecting this call. Is it okay?"
He said, "Yeah, that's fine."
So I went outside, took the call,
and it was the CPS phoning me direct to say, "We're going to go with this."
"This is a strong case. We're going to take it to court."
"I'm authorizing charges."
"Get the file ready."
Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
A few months later, I get a phone call from Kev and he says,
"I think I've done it."
"I've got permission to charge him."
And he said, "Thanks to your yellow file,
all the evidence...
we've done it."
That meant so much.
It put something right, I think, in my heart.
Finally, we're being heard.
Most women can relate to that feeling of being unsafe,
of being watched, of feeling like prey.
When I first started reporting the story,
I wasn't really so interested in why Matthew did it.
But then, the more I learned from digging into Matthew's life,
the more I realized this story was more complicated
than I initially thought.
In multiple police interviews,
Matthew had always denied wrongdoing,
so what came next, came as a shock.
There's a document's entitled,
"Prepared Statement, Matthew Hardy, 30 September, 2021."
Matthew and his solicitor put in a statement.
And it reads,
"I wish to admit the sets of offenses listed on the document."
"I've been very lonely and alone in my flat."
"I know I have got myself in trouble, and I am sorry for what I have done."
He pled guilty.
If you plead guilty before trial,
you can get a 25% reduction in your sentence.
- What's your full name? - I'm Matthew James Hardy.
Matthew also made a submission, things to mitigate his crimes...
I just struggle with social media in general.
- Right. - Shouldn't be on it.
...for the judge to consider that Matthew does want to change.
I struggle to understand when enough's enough,
and I'm trying to get support.
That's what you need.
I'm going to get the support I need
and get a life and start trying to stop.
Should he be worried about going to jail?
No, and that is because hardly any stalkers go to jail.
Now we've just got to wait for the sentencing.
You're at the mercy of other people.
There's nothing you can do to influence that,
so there's a bit of trepidation about what is actually going to be the conviction.
Just 0.1% of stalkers receive a criminal conviction, 0.1%.
And of that 0.1%,
the average custodial sentence is around 13 and a half months.
Maybe he'll walk free that day.
It's unthinkable if he was allowed to walk out of there
because he would go straight back to doing what he's been doing.
This was the day that... I'd been waiting for.
I just couldn't help but keep glancing over at him.
Because I was trying to get into my head... that this is the person
that has ruined your life for the last ten years.
So what Matthew's lawyers argued
was that Matthew didn't really understand what he was doing.
He didn't really mean to hurt people.
He is somebody who was extremely isolated,
who didn't have a job,
who didn't seem to have much money,
who didn't seem to have any friends.
He was reaching out to people to connect.
When they didn't want to be friends, he got angry and lashed out online.
His defense barrister was saying
about his conditions that he's got, and he doesn't know what he's doing.
I thought the judge is going to feel sorry for Matthew now,
not about his victims and what he's done to them.
I did feel sorry for him, I think,
when I heard about the things he's gone through in his past,
the rejection he went through when he was young.
I get picked on
because I'm different, because of my autism.
Matthew's lawyer put forward a report from a forensic psychologist.
The forensic psychologist argued
that Matthew's culpability should be reduced
because Matthew's autistic and his learning disability.
How much did Matthew understand of what he was doing?
And so the judge, basically, should go a bit more easy on Matthew.
It is important to consider that a person is autistic,
along with all of the other factors that build up their identity.
At the same time, as an autistic person,
I do find it disappointing when autism is used as a defense.
And that's because I think it feeds into these negative stereotypes
that people have about autistic people,
as cold, as lacking empathy, as uncaring,
as not understanding other people.
We might struggle to understand some social cues sometimes,
but there's a huge difference between struggling to understand social cues
and intentionally causing another person harm.
It explains some of what he did, but it didn't excuse it.
And me feeling sorry for him was quite short-lived
when I started reflecting back on the moments that he was mocking me.
And when he knew I was crying.
He didn't have any empathy.
I feel he knew what he was doing the whole time.
He knew the impact he was having on me.
I feel it spurred him on to do it more.
They say that he didn't understand fully what he was doing.
I don't agree with that because he actually put laughing faces to me
and said, "Good luck proving who I am."
"Sending screenshots to the police is pointless."
"I'm just getting started."
So he knew that this behavior was wrong,
but he still continued to do it.
Now... it was the moment of sentencing.
We were going to find out what was going to happen to Matthew.
So we go back into the courtroom, and...
He was going to prison for nine years.
Nine years, like, that's crazy.
Nine years!
Nine years! Ah.
I had to pinch myself. I couldn't believe it.
Matthew caused so much harm to so many people
for such a long time.
I think that's what the sentence reflects.
It was a massive relief.
But then, also, when I sat on it a bit, I was like,
"Why was it so hard to get to this point?"
How can you go from being sat in a room with someone saying to you,
"He's not actually doing anything wrong," to a nine-year sentence?
Nothing changed.
Like, he was doing the same things then as what he was being charged for.
Why is there that big difference in reaction?
Um, so, yeah, I was so happy that it felt like this time, it really was over.
I do think it has changed me as a person.
I'm a lot more private than I used to be.
I'm a lot more guarded about what I tell people.
Yeah, I don't really trust anyone...
um, apart from my family, which is...
That's quite sad, really, but that's the way it is,
and that's probably the way it'll always be.
I experienced all these feelings I've never felt before.
I still have really bad paranoia.
I'm really trying to work on myself...
...to become, like, the person that I used to be.
Every day, I do still now sit and wonder,
"Why did he behave the way he did?"
Online... you control the topic, you control where the conversation goes,
how it flows, who you're seen as when you talk to them.
That kind of power would be... intoxicating,
especially if you'd gone, you know, your entire high school time
on the outskirts, not knowing how to talk to anyone.
It doesn't surprise me that that was what Matthew threw himself into.
Control, power, online.
You're building up a fake idea of what a person can be.
Yeah, social media...
you know... it's kind of a bit like doing my fire.
I know that the fire is completely in my control,
like you feel really strong about it,
really alive.
But with fire,
something could go wrong.
I used to get scared, like, I could burn myself.
You're in danger.
Be really careful... because...
you might get hurt.