Summary

• Matthew Hardy stalked and harassed at least 62 women online over 11 years.
• The police had already received 100 complaints from different women about Matthew Hardy and arrested him 10 separate times before he was finally sent to prison for stalking.
• Matthew Hardy was sentenced to nine years in prison, the longest sentence for cyberstalking in UK history.

true-crime show on Netflix about an online stalker who relentlessly harassed women with nonstop calls and messages under false identities for years. This included hacking their social media s and creating fake profiles pretending to be his victims and their friends, family, and colleagues, and spreading lies about them in order to ruin their relationships.

"Can I tell you a secret?" was Hardy's signature phrase, as he asked all his victims this question at one point.

Can I Tell You A Secret? emphasized the extensive damage Hardy did to his victims' lives, which involved developing trust issues, severe anxiety and paranoia, and losing any feeling of safety. Part 1 focuses on three of Hardy's most recent victims, Zoe, Abby, and Lia, who had no personal connection to him and didn't find out he was their stalker for a long time. Part 2 covered the investigation carried out by Cheshire Police Constable Kevin Anderson, revealing tons of shocking details about Hardy's prior victims, his personal and criminal history, the scope of his crimes, and his eventual conviction.

Can I Tell You A Secret? is available to stream on Netflix.

8 Matthew Hardy Had Been Stalking & Harassing Women Online For 11 Years

He started with girls from his school back in 2009

By the time he was arrested by Officer Anderson in 2020, which led to his eventual conviction, Hardy had been stalking and harassing women online for 11 years.

Can I Tell You A Secret? Part 1 ended with Zoe finding an article in 2019 reporting that Hardy had been sentenced in 2011 for hacking a woman's Facebook . Part 2 then delved into Hardy's extensive history of online stalking, dating all the way back to 2009, when he was still a teenager. Hardy's first victims were girls from his high school, who received bizarre messages from him through fake s. By the time he was arrested by Officer Anderson in 2020, which led to his eventual conviction, Hardy had been stalking and harassing women online for 11 years.

7 Matthew Hardy Was Arrested 10 Times For Stalking Before He Went To Prison

The police received over 100 complaints about him over an 11-year period

Over the course of his 11 years of stalking, Hardy had been reported to the police in Cheshire over 100 times by different women. Only 10 of these complaints resulted in arrests, and of these arrests, only two resulted in any sort of punishment for Hardy. He did community service and had two restraining orders filed against him, but he didn't serve any hard time for his offences until his prison sentence in 2022.

6 Matthew Hardy Had At Least 62 Victims (But Likely More)

He is suspected of having hundreds of victims

In addition to Zoe, Abby, and Lia, earlier victims of Hardy's like Nini, his former classmate, and Sabrina, his uncle's wife's friend, also shared their stories about him in Can I Tell You A Secret? While only a handful of victims were interviewed, during his investigation, Officer Anderson spoke to a total of 62 women who had been victims of Hardy's stalking and harassment. However, Anderson believes that many more women have been terrorized by Hardy over the years, predicting there are hundreds more victims out there.

5 Matthew Hardy Stalked At Least 1 Of His Victims In Person

He breached a restraining order filed by one of his victims

Though the bulk of his stalking and harassment took place online, Hardy's crimes weren't just limited to cyberspace. In addition to calling and messaging her constantly, Hardy stalked at least one of his victims, Amy, by following her around Northwich in person. As Amy explained in Can I Tell You A Secret?, Hardy messaged her while she was washing a car at work and described what she was wearing and what she was doing.

Amy was able to get a restraining order against Hardy in 2013, which prevented him from making with her through any means. However, Hardy ended up breaching the restraining order numerous times both online and in person. This included one incident where Amy was in her car with the doors locked, waiting for her boyfriend to return, and Hardy approached her car and started yelling and banging on the windows.

4 One Of Matthew Hardy's Victims Slept With A Samurai Sword For Protection

Zoe lived in fear that her stalker would try to harm her in real life

After months of enduring her then-unknown stalker's intimidation, Zoe was living in a permanent state of fear. Though he had yet to make in person, she was so afraid that he would come after her in real life that she slept with a samurai sword nearby. "I felt that unsafe," she expressed in Can I Tell You A Secret? "For me, it felt safer to have something to protect myself. That's the steps that I took." Thankfully, she never had to use the weapon, but this demonstrates the lengths some of his victims went to in order to feel safe.

3 One Of Matthew Hardy's Victims Kept A 700+ Page File Of Evidence Of His Stalking

Lia's extensive record of proof was a major factor in Hardy's eventual conviction

Thanks to all the valuable data Lia provided, Officer Anderson was able to directly link Hardy to at least some of the offences.

Lia, who used to be a paralegal, kept a massive yellow folder full of printed screenshots of every message ever sent, every fake social media profile and ever created, and every real image used by her stalker. Lia's file contained over 700 pages of evidence of that she'd gathered, organized, and indexed. She handed it over to Officer Anderson, who described it as the "nugget" he needed to make his case.

Thanks to all the valuable data Lia provided, Officer Anderson was able to directly link Hardy to at least some of the offences. Once Anderson was able to provide enough evidence of Hardy's crimes, S (Crown Prosecution Service) decided to move forward and take the case to court, giving him permission to charge Hardy. If it wasn't for Lia's diligent documentation of his crimes, Hardy might never have been brought to trial in the first place.

2 Matthew Hardy Was Formally Diagnosed With Autism

His attorney used his autism diagnosis as part of his defense in court

In Part 2 of Can I Tell You A Secret?, former classmates of Hardy's were interviewed about what he was like in school. Hardy was described as an outcast who experienced a lot of social exclusion and grew up feeling different from other people. It wasn't until he was an adult that Hardy was formally diagnosed with ASD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Hardy's autism diagnosis was later brought up in court when he was eventually put on trial for his stalking crimes. His attorney brought in a forensic psychologist to try to convince the judge to reduce Hardy's culpability, arguing that he couldn't have known that what he was doing was wrong because of his autism and thus didn't intend to cause any harm. Dr. Amy Pearson, a developmental psychologist, explained that she "find[s] it disappointing when autism is used as a defense," because it further perpetuates negative stereotypes that autistic people lack empathy for and understanding of other people.

1 Matthew Hardy Was Sentenced To 9 Years In Prison

He received the longest sentence for cyberstalking in UK history

In January 2022, Hardy was sentenced to nine years in prison, the longest sentence ever given to a cyberstalker in the UK. As Kale noted, only 0.1% of stalkers ever receive a criminal conviction, and of those convicted, the average custodial sentence is only 13.5 months. Kale pointed out that the length of his sentence was likely influenced by the degree of harm he'd done, the number of people he'd harmed, and the extensive length of time he'd been carrying out his stalking. Hardy appealed his sentence 11 months after he entered prison, and it was reduced to eight years.