Can I Tell You a Secret, episode 1: the beginning - podcast

In the first part of a new series, the Guardian journalist Sirin Kale takes us to a small town in the north of England to uncover how one man began a decade of cyberstalking

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In this new six-episode podcast, the Guardian journalist Sirin Kale investigates the story of Matthew Hardy, a cyberstalker who terrified people in his hometown and beyond for more than a decade.

His harassment would often start in the same way, a fake profile posing as a young woman with a simple message: Hey hun, can I tell you a secret?". This series attempts to untangle his web of deception to find out how and why he wreaked havoc over so many people's lives.