How Britain's worst cyberstalker, Matthew Hardy, evaded justice for 11 years despite terrorizing multiple young women – as his story tells in Netflix's Can I Tell You A Secret?

Matthew Hardy, from Cheshire, carried out an online stalking and harassment campaign that lasted more than a decade.

His brutal online persecutions tore apart friendships and relationships – and even nearly ruined the wedding day of one of his victims.

Others lived in such fear that they slept with samurai swords and baseball bats next to their beds.

But despite terrorizing young women for more than a decade, Hardy was only given a nine-year prison sentence in January 2022.

As Can I Tell You A Secret airs on Netflix, FEMAIL looks at how Britain's worst cyberstalker avoided justice for 11 years.

When did Matthew Hardy's stalking start?

Hardy's cybercrime began when he was in high school in 2006.

While Facebook was still in its infancy, Hardy's stalking and harassing tendencies were also in its infancy.

The then-teenager had a hard time in high school, according to classmates, who said he was often teased and bullied.

Gina, who attended the same school in Northwich, said she often felt sorry for Hardy.

She said The guard in 2022: 'He was isolated, I always made an effort to say hello.'

But when his peers and young girls at area schools rushed to sign up for Facebook, Hardy began using the platform to stalk them.

According to the publication, he single-handedly stalked 25 girls from a school in Cheshire.

Melanie (not her real name), his first victim, said the girls at school soon realized that the anonymous person messaging them about cheating boyfriends was Hardy.

But everything came to a head when Hardy told Melanie that her late mother was having an affair.

While she told police she “couldn't take anymore” of Hardy's harassment, authorities said they couldn't do anything because it was online.

Amy Bailey, who was also a student from Northwich, was just 16 when Hardy started harassing her in 2011, bombarding her phone with 90 calls a day.

She told The Guardian: 'One time he said he saw me washing a car, another time he commented on the color of my top. I went in and started crying.”

However, when she told Cheshire Police about Hardy's stalking, she was ordered to delete her social media accounts and block his number.

That same year, Hardy was convicted of hacking and harassing another ex-classmate, Samantha Boniface.

Two years later, in 2013, he pleaded guilty to harassing and hacking Amy Bailey and was given a restraining order and a suspended sentence.

Bailey reported Hardy to police three times for violating his restraining order: once in 2014, again in 2015 and again in 2017.

Hardy's convictions didn't seem to deter him when he adopted another victim in 2013: Gina Martin.

She woke up daily to new messages from people who had interacted with an impersonation account Hardy had created of her.

His constant rants began to make Martin afraid to visit her parents' house, as she knew he lived only five minutes away.

She also eventually reported Hardy to Cheshire Police in 2016.

He was arrested under caution in September 2016, but in April 2017 the Crown Prosecution Service declined to proceed with the case.

These were not the only women from the area who were tormented; Hardy's periodic harassment of Northwich pupils ultimately lasted 25 years.

But his disturbing tendencies didn't stop there.

Hardy cast his net wider, stalking women in the area and then women he had never even met.

How could Hardy avoid justice for eleven years?

The serial perpetrator began targeting women with large social media followers, with whom he had no connection whatsoever.

Among these women targeted by Hardy was Zoe Hallam, who was the first to receive a message saying “Can I tell you a secret?” on Hardy's Snapchat in 2018.

These messages then turned into silent phone calls, with Hardy challenging Hallam for crying in fear on the phone.

Hardy even went out of his way to pose as her partner's father online and have inappropriate conversations with teenage girls, tarnishing his reputation as a doctor.

Hallam felt she was responsible for smearing the reputation of her partner's father – a sentiment shared by many of Hardy's victims.

Eventually it became so frightening for Hallam that she slept with a samurai sword next to her bed.

In April 2019 she reported him to Lincolnshire Police, but they claimed there was nothing they could do.

They said they could only track figures for 'high profile' cases such as rape or murder.

Abby Furness, whose relationships were also torn apart by Hardy's online torment, was made to feel like she was wasting police time when she spoke out.

Since he started stalking her in 2019, Hardy had sent intimate photos of her to her boss, destroyed her relationship and even impersonated her online.

But when she finally reported him in July 2020, Furness said Kent police suggested she was overreacting.

Furness admitted she felt “really stupid” after the phone call, recalling, “They said, 'You too Real Do you think you are in danger? Because we're twenty minutes away from you and something might happen here.'

Although Hardy continued to harass her until September 2021, she felt there was no point in contacting authorities again after her initial correspondence with Kent Police.

When was Matthew Hardy caught?

Hardy was arrested a total of ten times before he was finally put behind bars.

When Cheshire's PC Kevin Anderson was assigned to the case in December 2019, his decade-long tirades of stalking and harassment would finally come to an end.

While searching Cheshire Police's systems, Anderson made a disturbing discovery.

More than a hundred logs about Hardy had been submitted to police from 62 separate victims.

While he was in the process of contacting Hardy's victims, he noticed it was a former paralegal named Lia Marie Hambly.

Hambly had documented more than 700 pages of communications from Hardy, which was a huge boost in helping Anderson strengthen the case.

In January 2022, Mathew Hardy was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to harassment and stalking, citing fear of violence and intimidation.

Although only nine cases were considered during Hardy's sentencing, the final number of his victims is likely in the hundreds.

Anderson told the Evening standard that there were probably 'too many to comprehend'.