Police repeatedly fail victims by not taking stalking seriously

In March 2022, I published an investigation into the crimes of Matthew Hardy, who had been sentenced to nine years in prison in what was then believed to be the UK's worst-ever case of cyberstalking.

- Sirin Kale

The story caught the public's attention and I later turned it into a six-part Guardian podcast series, Can I Tell You a Secret?, which topped the UK podcast charts. It has now inspired a new, two-part Netflix documentary of the same name.

Hardy tormented people, mostly women, for years. He broke apart families, relationships and professional relationships. He sent nude photos of his victims to their work contacts. He called them late at night and breathed down the phone; when the women cried from stress and fear, he'd send them mocking messages. On one occasion he nearly wrecked a wedding. His victims were diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Nobody knows how many people Hardy targeted. Cheshire constabulary alone received more than 100 reports about him, resulting in 10 arrests and two restraining orders, over an 11-year period.

Hardy's crimes were memorably awful, but away from the true-crime podcasts and Netflix documentaries, stalking is an ordinary, unremarkable sort of crime - one that attracts scant attention from police and prosecutors. In fact, arguably stalking has been all but decriminalised in England and Wales, with devastating consequences: just 6.6% of reported stalkers are charged with a crime, and only 1.4% are convicted.