Who Trolled Amber? - Sweet Bobby - Episode 2: Witness protection

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Bobby finds his way back into Kirat's life, and their relationship grows closer – with devastating consequences. Meanwhile, Alexi investigates the sophistication of the catfishing scam. Listen to the full six-part series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists, download the free Tortoise audio app. For early and ad-free access to all our investigative series and daily and weekly shows, subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts.If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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This episode contains descriptions of coercive control and some strong language. Did you know anything about this witness protection programme that he was in? I did, actually, yeah. I did. I thought it was really odd. It's like a mafia movie, isn't it? It's like, you know, Goodfellas or something, you know? So this is when the story starts to get weird, like, really weird. You remember, in November 2013, Keerak got a message to say that Bobby, this handsome cardiologist

she'd been speaking to online, had been shot. He'd gone into a coma, and then a few months later, he'd died. Well, it turns out it wasn't that simple. So it was kind of like, you'd hear her talk about him a bit, but then because of this whole thing about witness protection, it would go quiet for a long time and she wouldn't hear from him. So there was a period when Bobby got shot and then he was in a coma and then he started to get better,

but then he died. Did he die? OK. And then... End of Act One. Act Two, he comes back alive. Three weeks later, yeah, he's alive because he's been put in witness protection. Where was he?

In the US. Bobby wasn't dead. He was alive. And not only that, he? In the US. Bobby wasn't dead. He was alive. And not only that, he was in Witness Protection. You know, like in the movies. Friends of Kirat, like Niren and Sarah, who you just heard, they struggled to piece this period in Kirat's life together. And they're not the only ones.

Even after reading hundreds of pages of legal documents, I have trouble navigating this world, this mix of fact and fiction, fantasy and reality. It can get pretty disorientating. But not for Kirat. She remembers every detail. One day after Bobby had passed away, it must have been about May probably, I think,

where I had a message from SC, Bobby's widow. By the way, we're referring to some of these people, like Bobby's widow, by their initials, for legal reasons. SC, who had been told to fly to New York from Nairobi. So she was in New York and she said to me, I had to know something, but she couldn't tell me. And I had to speak to Simran. Simran, that's Keira's younger cousin.

And I was like, OK, what do I need to know? I'm not really that close that I needed to know anything. That's Kira's younger cousin. And I remember taking my phone, leaving the office, going out onto the piazza to take the call. And Simran told me that Bobby was actually alive and he'd been in witness protection, which was a bit of a shock because he died. because he died. Yeah, I was just dumbstruck. Speechless. By May 2014, the catfisher, the person scamming Keira online, had brought Bobby back into her life.

He'd been resurrected. And this was when the scam really ramped up. The sophistication, the number of characters, and soon, the emotional blackmail. In a few years, the catfish's control over Kirat would become almost absolute. I'm going to tell you exactly how that was able to happen. But to do that, I'm going to tell you exactly how that was able to happen. But to do that, I'm going to take you through what happened from Kirat's perspective, what she thought was happening.

Because I don't think you can understand how this deception worked unless you put yourself in Kirat's shoes and ask yourself, at each stage, what would you do? I'm Alexi Mostris from Tortoise Media. You're listening to Sweet Bobby. Episode 2. Witness Protection. Even after Bobby turned up in New York, it wasn't like he was a massive deal in Kerat's life. She was dating, she was going out, and she had her job. Bobby was more like a story you tell your work colleagues, like,

you're not going to believe what happened to my friend. And for a few months it even seemed like Bobby was getting better. But then he got sick again, really sick. And at this point, Kirat felt like she could offer him some support. All I know is when somebody's that unwell and when somebody needs your help, you help them. There were blood clots, strokes, he was partially paralysed and unable to speak properly, and deep anger, which is actually quite common in patients who've been through a trauma. At one point, Bobby even tried to kill himself. One of the nurses found him just in time.

But how did Kirat know all this? Well, Bobby was sending her messages on Facebook. Messages like this one. I don't deserve you guys, so please don't bother. I do miss you all, but I don't deserve it. But she was also getting regular updates on Bobby's condition from his friends and his family, as well as his consultants at the hospital. Usually Kirat would reply with voice notes, short recordings you can send instead of a text message. Has this all been too much the last couple of days?

The last week even? And what's amazing about these voice notes is that we can basically listen in real time to how their relationship unfolded. I don't like you feeling like this. Over the months, Kirat found that she could offer Bobby something they couldn't. Out of everyone, Bobby seemed to respond best to her. So she found herself being the one to tell him off if he drank too much, praying for him before a risky operation.

She was slowly becoming Bobby's crutch. Something's bothering you and I can't work out what it is and you seem to not be weird stuff was happening as well. Bobby's wife started acting oddly. She flew over to be by Bobby's side in New York, and then she disappeared for a few days before turning up with no explanation. And Bobby, he started drinking a lot, sneaking out of hospital to drink in bars and getting into fights. To Kira, it seemed almost like he was daring her to give up on him. It was kind of like he was on a vengeful, challenging,

like, I'm going to kill myself, let's see what you guys are going to do about it. It was very much that way. That was his mindset and it was really disturbing. And this continued until one day, about seven months after he returns from the dead, Bobby confesses his feelings for Kirat. So I think somebody had said something that he likes you or something. Yeah, I think those hints had been dropped in the past. I needed to deal with stuff.

I had a lot going on. And he was not well. He just wasn't in the right state of mind. He didn't know what he was saying, as far as I was concerned. He was very delicate, you know, fragile. I think we'd had him sectioned in the hospital at one point. When I hear Kirat talk like this, it's so clear to me that she believed in this created world,

and to an extent, still does. You can hear it in how she speaks about it, that in her mind, an element of it is all still does. You can hear it in how she speaks about it, that in her mind an element of it is all still real. I think I did at some point say it to him that I don't think you know what you're saying kind of thing but then I had the whole thing is you're belittling my feelings and you're just telling me they're not real I am, I do know what I'm saying kind of thing and then he started telling me how far back his feelings for me went. I think it's worth pointing out something here Bobby's declaration

of love that came four years after his first contact with Kirat this wasn't some whirlwind love affair this was a slow burn whoever was behind this deceit, they were patient A few months later, on Valentine's Day 2015 Kirat and Bobby officially became a couple And even then, Kirat had reservations Obviously I did have feelings for him Whether they were the right kind of feelings Question mark, massive question mark Because everybody kept saying it to me,

and then his life expectancy was so short, we knew he wasn't going to last for months. He could die with this next operation. And so it was a case of he deserves happiness for the time that he's got left. And it's not like I can do anything physical with him or anything like that. So I wasn't worried about that side of things. It was more granting his kind of dying wish in a way. So I cared about Bobby a lot. I loved him as a friend, as a brother, or whatever it was, not as a brother anymore. But what was I going to lose

by making a very sick man happy? But the thing is, whatever the crisis, Bobby always seemed to be able to pull through. And over time, their relationship developed. And eventually, Keira was won over. Despite having a boyfriend in hospital in New York, with life-threatening injuries, who, remember, she'd only ever met once,

back in that Brighton nightclub, and who couldn't even tell her the name of his doctor for security reasons, despite all of that, Kirat fell head over heels. You mean everything to me. You could hear it in her messages to him at the time. She's besotted, invested. And listening to them makes me realise that despite all these red flags and all the obstacles, some part of her just wanted to believe that all of this could have a happy ending.

I love you. I missed you so much today, sweets. So much. I really hope you're not too down. Today I caught myself smiling for no reason. Then I realized I was thinking about you. smiling for no reason. Then I realized I was thinking about you. This is torture. I love you so much. Please don't ever forget. I know a few people in long distance relationships, and it's not always easy battling time zones and months apart, but most of them make it work. And even though this was definitely an odd situation, there were parts of it that feel familiar. Bobby and Kirat would have these long Skype calls, some lasting 13 hours at a time. They'd log in in the evening, talk for a bit and then fall asleep, listening to each other breathe. A friend of mine used to do that, actually, with his girlfriend in America.

There was an extra reason, too. The Skype calls meant that she could listen out in case Bobby had a medical emergency but even as their relationship grew stronger there was one thing about Bobby's Skype calls that never changed he never turned his camera on still it was, in a very modern way, romantic if they couldn't be in the same bedroom,

then the Skype calls were the closest thing to it. And they had date nights together too. They'd cook a meal and watch Apprentice on TV, giggling together on different sides of the Atlantic, Keira in her bedroom in London, Bobby in a hospital in Manhattan. During this period, Keira even recorded, and how's this for devotion, an entire Harry Potter book for Bobby, just so he had something to listen to.

Harry heard from Hogwarts once any morning about a week after he arrived at the borough. And they messaged constantly about everything, about buying a house together, about what they would call their children, about what their families would say when they knew, but mostly about when Bobby was finally going to come to the UK. Stay positive, you know, we'll be together really soon. You see, Bobby kept promising to come home, back to London. He wanted to transfer to a hospital closer to Kirat where he could restart his medical career as a cardiologist.

Just trying to work out how long it's going to be before I can see you. Kirat kept getting excited. This was a voice note she sent to Bobby around that time. This time next week, in a week, you could be here. Wow. Wow. Still deciding what I should be wearing to pick you up. I'm so excited. But here's the thing. Something always got in the way. There was always a reason he couldn't travel. So do you mind just starting off, just introducing yourself for the podcast,

telling us a bit about who you are and what kind of work you do? I'm Professor of Public Protection at the University of Gloucestershire. I specialise in coercive control and homicide. My name's Jane Monckton-Smith. Coercive control is when someone uses threats or manipulation to isolate a victim or to take away their independence. And what Bobby was doing was something pretty typical in a controlling relationship, creating barriers. The research suggests in an ordinary relationship, you might meet someone, you know, that thing, oh, love at first sight. That has a shelf life. It develops into something else.

It develops into something more grounded and maybe stronger and more mature. But where there are barriers to the relationship reaching a conclusion, that stage can last much, much, much longer and retain that intensity. It never gets to that stage really where it's developed into, you know, a mature, equitable relationship between two people. Every month that went by, the volume of messages from Bobby increased. If Kirat wasn't actually on her phone, she could hear it buzzing away in her bag or in her car. It was Bobby, making himself heard. And you might be wondering, heard how?

Because Bobby mostly typed. Yes, he did speak over Skype, but his voice there was just a whisper. One of his operations damaged his vocal cords, he said. And this year, when Kirat downloaded all her Facebook messages between her and Bobby, it became clearer that this might have been deliberate. This lack of voice. We've got literally thousands of examples of Kirat's own voice notes, but none of Bobby's, because Skype doesn't save calls, and he never recorded any voice notes himself. When I started to wade through this all, I began to wonder how purposeful this all was. Did the person behind this deceit not want their voice preserved?

There is one way you can hear Bobby. It's through the bleeps of his messages coming in. It's quite ethereal, like something from another world. Did you hear the bleeps? That's the catfisher. By now, Kirat was really into Bobby. And look, they're two adults trying to make a relationship work long distance. And obviously I was wondering about the physical side of things. Your relationship with Bobby did develop an intimate side as well.

Yeah. As in, we had an intimate relationship but it wasn't obviously not physical and there was no um you know people like sordid details but there were no like photos or videos or anything it's yeah so there was nothing like that at all for kira having an intimate relationship like this was a really big deal it took a lot for her And it's, yeah, so there was nothing like that at all. For Kirat, having an intimate relationship like this was a really big deal. It took a lot for her to trust someone in that way. There's a lot about those early months in Kirat's relationship, which seem happy, reading Harry Potter, having date nights.

But when I tell experts about it, they tell me things that make these events take on a much darker perspective because specialists like Jane Monckton-Smith recognise that all of this, it's part of a pattern. So in coercive control, generally speaking, there is a stage right at the beginning that in the early relationship, and it's often referred to as the honeymoon stage where one one or both people will be representing themselves as maybe a little

bit different to who they actually are they're going to put themselves in the best possible light and very controlling people will want to be able to establish their control over a person incredibly quickly. So what they tend to do is bombard the other person with romance and love and that kind of thing, which can be very persuasive. But they will often pull back all of a sudden to make that person crave the attention again. So they'll give them all of this attention, which the person is loving and is producing dopamine and all these wonderful things. Then they'll just withdraw it purposely, purposely. And that person will then do anything for them to crave to get that attention back again. And that can create a cycle.

for them to crave to get that attention back again and that can create a cycle and when you take a step back and look at bobby and kirat's relationship from the outside you can see it the love bombing messages the promises the last minute disappointments i just want to hold you in my arms and never let you go. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Instead, I let you down and hurt you badly. And it only got worse. By the end of 2015, Bobby had become more and more controlling. Why are you studying now? So you get a proper job? Because I'm not like your ex who tolerate you going out.

Bobby's always calling me and it got to the point where like I tried to call you who you're on a call with oh your phone line was busy who are you talking to he knew everything I did he knew absolutely everything I did. Every time Keira didn't do exactly what Bobby wanted or she questioned the relationship or something Bobby was telling her or even just did something for herself like getting her eyebrows threaded without telling him something would happen He would freak out or even worse

have a stroke or some sort of medical emergency and often Kirat would be on the other end of the phone when that happened. Between 2015 and 2018 Bobby went from one health crisis to the next. All these things were constantly happening. He's had a mini stroke, he's had this, he's got another clot in his head, he needs to be operated and these big things became normal. I can't keep a track of how many. I mean, it was the norm. For Keira, it was terrifying, worrying about, sometimes even listening to, the person she loved jolting from one near-death experience to the next. In a situation that is only online, your choices are limited, aren't they? And if you really think this person's going to leave,

you're probably going to start panicking. So you're going to do something big and dramatic. I've seen in some cases that as somebody's walking out the door, they'll suddenly get a marriage proposal to bring them back. If this is online, if somebody's feigning a heart attack, you have distracted them from leaving you. They're not going to walk out and leave you now. They're going to get an ambulance.

They're going to worry about you. There's going to be follow-up. They're going to, how are you? They have guaranteed contact, given them time to manipulate the situation back into their hands. And it wasn't just the constant emergencies or guilt trips. Bobby got jealous, like really jealous, of callers on Kirat's radio show,

of things she was posting on Facebook. You're not as innocent as you make yourself out to be. Biggest fucking joke. Even of her friends. I wasn't even allowing my friends to hug me, to comfort me. I'd be like, just don't touch me. I belong to Bobby. Because I was scared of what he might think,

even though he didn't know I was there. I just wanted it to be very clear. I wanted the lines to be very clear. This is not... You know, I was just so scared of being accused of doing something wrong. Did she ever talk to you about any behaviour on Bobby's part that you thought was controlling?

Yeah, I think she did. Now you're saying it, I remember. Yeah, and he was quite controlling and he was quite possessive and I thought that's a bit odd as well. If he's not here to see you, why is he controlling? Why is he possessive? Basically, she would dance to his tune, which is really annoying for me. It's like, who is this guy, you know,

to make you, my friend, behave in this way, to become so subservient and kind of like fear, it felt like. It felt like she was acting out of fear, fear of upsetting him. If Bobby didn't like how she was behaving, he would even threaten to cheat on Kirat with his nurse, a woman called Maria. Fuck it. I'm going out with Maria for a walk. Don't bother calling me tonight. I might be with her.

Pretty soon, Kirat was signed off work because of stress. She lost weight, a lot of it. She stopped talking to her friends. She fell out with Harvey, her best friend. She even quit her beloved radio show. Do you remember a time when all this was happening, when you saw her and you were shocked by how she looked? Yeah, I was actually shocked at how much weight she lost because she was really thin.

I obviously didn't want to go on about it because you don't want to make her feel conscious about it. But I was like, oh, my God, she's really lost a lot of weight. Yeah, she didn't look good. You knew she was stressed, you knew she wasn't eating properly and she would say she's not eating properly. And it's the sort of thing, like, we'd meet up for lunch and I'd be like, you need to eat more because you're wasting away

some of the stories Kirat tells me they're hard to hear between 2015 and 2018 particularly Bobby's control escalated there was one time in 2016 when Kirat started getting chest pains and Bobby pressurized her into having a mammogram to check for cancer. He was a cardiologist after all, why wouldn't she listen to him? And he promised her that he would be there in person in the UK by the time the appointment came round. So Kirat booked it. But yet again, Bobby broke his promise. He didn't get to London on time. But that wasn't the worst bit. Kirat went for the appointment on her own, and it was a pretty scary experience. Later, when Bobby heard that her consultant happened to be male, he freaked out. How dare she let another man touch her like that?

He freaked out. How dare she let another man touch her like that? By April 2016, Bobby had made no fewer than six promises to Kirat to come to the UK, and all of them broken. But on the seventh time, he seemed to be serious. It was now more than a year into their relationship, and Kirat's family were starting to ask questions. This time, Kirat pulled out all the stops. I'd bought new things for the house, like new bins, sorted out a new cutlery and crockery,

totally repainted the kitchen units, stripped them down, took them into the garage. She arranged to take six weeks off work, most of it unpaid. She even had her bathroom redone. All for Bobby. I'm a bit mad. But it's all because of you, baby. It's all because of you, but, you know, it is because of you. The catalyst. And then, a few days before Bobby was due to arrive, he picked a fight with her over the phone. Something wasn't right, and I just kept saying, you know, what's wrong? And suddenly, while he was arguing with her, Bobby had a huge heart attack, with Kirat on the other end of the line.

And then the line goes dead. And I was shaking and I was in tears and I was just screaming for him down the phone and getting nothing back. Distraught, Kirat rushed home. She threw some clothes in a bag and drove to Heathrow Airport. She had to make sure Bobby was okay. But then, literally as she was at the check-in desk, about to book a ticket, one of Bobby's cousins calls her. An older woman called KB. Maybe you were in the wrong, KB suggests to Kirat. Bobby was stressed out about coming to see you, she says, and his heart gave out.

In other words, it's your fault. Kirat was devastated. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Hi, I'm Una Chaplin, and I'm the host of a new podcast called Hollywood Exiles. It tells the story of how my grandfather, Charlie Chaplin, and many others were caught up in a campaign to root out communism in Hollywood.

It's a story of glamour and scandal and political intrigue and a battle for the soul of the nation. Hollywood Exiles, from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com Do you know where the term catfish comes from? I'm not talking about what it means here to trick someone online using fake identities. I'm talking about how it was coined.

I mean, why catfish? Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, it comes from a story about fish, and specifically about cod shipped from Alaska to China. On the way, the cod is kept alive. They're stored in big tanks on the ship. But by the time the cod gets to China, the flesh tastes bland and mushy. And then one fisherman had a genius idea. If he could find a way to keep the cod swimming, then maybe he could improve the taste. So he put a catfish in the tank with the cod. Catfish eat cod, so now the cod had a reason to swim. And as a result, they stayed fresh. And now I've looked into this story a bit, this catfish origin story, and here's the thing. It sounds pretty unlikely, doesn't it? I mean, wouldn't you just get one

massive catfish left in the tank at the end of the trip? And actually, there's very little evidence to suggest that the story is true. It actually comes from a documentary filmed in 2010, the one that eventually became the popular MTV show Catfish. In the film, the husband of a woman who is revealed to be creating all these fake identities online, he tells this story in order to justify her actions. What he was saying was, like the catfish, his wife made life more interesting for the people she tricked.

So maybe even the term catfish is a type of catfish, a positive spin on a behaviour that can actually have devastating consequences. Last year, a group of US psychologists found that nearly one in four women and one in three men admitted to catfishing online to one extent or another. Given that 40% of relationships now start online, that's a lot of potential for harm. Even though I know that catfishing is a very real problem, that didn't mean I always found it easy to listen to Kirat's story. I mean, I had a lot of questions.

Like, how come Kirat didn't get suspicious that Bobby had never sent her a video? And if Bobby was shot in Kenya, why did he turn up in New York? Why was he in witness protection in the first place? And why could other people, like his ex-wife, go to see him but not Kirat? There's no denying it. There were a lot of holes in this story. So I was thinking, is Kirat just a bit gullible? And then I learnt more about the scam. How creative it was. The sophistication. It's almost admirable.

I'll give you one example. One day, Bobby asked Kirat to help him choose some clothes for his baby son. We were picking out clothes from mother care and things like that. And then when pictures had been shared of him with Bobby, and then obviously he then shared them with me of his son, he'd be wearing some of the clothes we picked. Let's just talk through what happened. Bobby and Kirat go online to shop for baby clothes. And then, a couple of weeks later, Kirat receives some pictures of the baby wearing the clothes they'd chosen together. So that must mean Bobby was real, right?

Because how could that happen if he wasn't? This is always one of the first stories I tell people when I talk about the case. And I think about it a lot because I think it gives you a real insight into the person behind all this and how they operate. Here's what actually happened. Remember I told you in episode one that Bobby was real? As in, there's a real Bobby out there who is separate from the character that Kirat is speaking to.

Well, the catfisher somehow got hold of his photos, including a photo of Bobby's real son wearing some baby clothes. And somehow they'd managed to work out where these clothes were bought from and then had tricked Kirat into thinking that she had chosen the clothes herself. The catfisher had reverse-engineered the whole herself. The catfisher had reverse engineered the whole thing. And there's a second reason why Kirat was ready to believe Bobby, and it's probably the most important one of all. As I mentioned in episode one, Bobby was far from the only person speaking to Kirat at this point. He was just one of a cast of characters and this cast

was made up of dozens of people. Like the time when Kirat joined a Facebook group with about 20 members of Bobby's extended family, some of whom Kirat recognised. You know I was like really happy that he was doing this obviously because he's taking the step into introducing me to his family. Bobby had promised to introduce her and he said this was a good way of doing it. And, you know, there was loads of banter and jokes in there about Bobby and his cooking and his behaviours and the things he'd done and liked in the past. Most of the characters were friendly to Keira. It was nice. Everyone was really nice and warm and welcoming, apart from one of the sister-in-laws, who's very close with SC, she left the group. She was apparently loyal to Bobby's ex-wife

and didn't like Kira for that reason. But she was fake too. They were all fake. The key bit here is that in total, dozens of different characters were used to trick Kira, all of them interacting with each other as if they had autonomous lives. Some of them totally imagined, some of them based on real people. And the catfisher was behind all of them. These characters, they'd come in and out of Kirat's life on and off stage as they were needed. But most of the time, she was speaking to a much smaller group of people.

If you think of the dozens of cousins and their husbands as a supporting cast, they were also the main players. In a film, these guys would be the stars. And at any time, Kirak was speaking to about four of them, not including Bobby. There was Bobby's ex-wife, SC. RN, who was also a medic and who was by Bobby's bedside for much of his treatment, KB, an older cousin of Bobby's, the one who talked to Kirat at the airport, and YJ, another cousin, but this time a male and much younger.

And they all had very different characters, and they were all constantly texting, messaging and phoning Kirat, like all of the time. And Kirat would talk to her friends in the real world about Bobby too, like Niren and Sarah or her cousin Simran or Harvey, her best friend. When I was reading the witness statement, Kirat had to give me an actual spreadsheet to keep up with all these names. So I'm certainly not going to expect you to remember all of this. But the important thing is that all these characters work together.

They existed to confirm each other's allegations, even when they seemed unbelievable. In domestic abuse cases, this type of behavior is called toxic triangulation, making something seem real by having more than one person tell it. The catfisher had another tactic too. Bobby started talking directly to Kirat's family, like her mum and her brother, even her cousins, feeding them snippets of information, which they would then tell Kirat. It was a positive reinforcement loop. Anytime Kirat started to doubt something, someone she trusted told her it was true. I've spent days talking to Kirat about what happened to her,

immersing myself in her relationship with Bobby. But I still only have Kirat's version of events, and I know I need to speak to the other person at the centre of all this. I need to speak to the real Bobby, the person of all this. I need to speak to the real Bobby, the person whose whole identity had been stolen by the catfisher. Now, I've always known there was a real Bobby and a fake Bobby, but what I still don't know at this point is exactly how much the real one knows. What's his role in all of this?

One of the people I've been speaking to during this investigation is a lawyer called Amrit. Amrit's been helping Kirat and he also knows Bobby. And for weeks I've been asking Amrit to pass on a message to Bobby and finally, one day, he says yes. He tells me he's meeting Bobby in person very soon. He's not exactly sure when, but he'll give me a call as soon as it happens. And I'm nervous because if Bobby says no, then that's a big piece of the puzzle that I'm never going to see. Now, the thing with investigations like this is that nothing ever happens quite how you plan it.

So when Amrit does call me, I'm in a really loud restaurant. I missed this call. And I missed the call. And this is so annoying because I don't know how many more opportunities I'm going to get. So I try and call Amrit back. But he's not picking up. And then eventually, he does. Hi.

Hi, Alex. Don't worry. So you spoke to Bobby? Yeah, I spoke to him and his friends. It worked out really well. Bobby is understandably nervous, but he might be willing to talk. And I'm excited, so I called Claudia, part of the team working on this series, to let her know. So we have to kind of go through some processes. Like, he's still a bit anxious, so we have to go down to Brighton to see him.

That's amazing. And did he give a kind of a time frame for this? Is it tomorrow? Is it next week? It seems like step by step we're getting closer to Bobby. Back in Kirat's world she was also getting closer to Bobby, the fake one. I just wanted him here and that was kind of the be all and end all and he seemed to finally understand and he just said I think I think this is the way it happened I hope I'm not confusing it would say there's so many other times that he said he was coming but it was a case of literally I need you here and that's it and he was like I'm coming this is our year. Love you so much.

By March 2018, three years into their relationship, and eight years after Kirat first started to speak to Bobby online, he finally arrives in London. So much had happened since the first time he was going to come, and how many times he was going to come, I don't know how many times he was going to come, I've never counted, to be honest. After all those years of broken promises, in Kirat's mind at least, all that hardship was about to be over.

Next week on Sweet Bobby, a big part of the puzzle falls into place as the catfisher is revealed. Would you characterise the relationship between Bobby and Kirat as a coercive control relationship? I'd characterise it as high-risk coercive control. What do you mean by high-risk? High risk of Kirat suffering some kind of harm. Serious harm. And last question.

Have you ever met, read or come across anyone like ****? I think that **** for me is probably the most invested and obsessive controlling person in this environment that I have seen personally. I think she needs prosecuting. Personally, I think she needs prosecuting because if everybody thinks this is the end and she will never behave like this again, they're wrong. She will. Thanks for listening to this episode. Sweet Bobby was written and reported by me, Alexi Mostris, produced by Gary Marshall, with additional reporting and production by Claudia Williams. Sound design is by Carla Patella.

The executive producer is Basha Cummings. Sweet Bobby is a six-part live investigation by Tortoise Media, and Tortoise members get early access. If you enjoyed this episode, why not invite your friends to get the Tortoise app? If you can't wait until next week for episode three, you can listen now on the Tortoise website. Members get early ad-free access to every episode. You can download the app and take out a 30-day free trial. We've had an amazing reaction to Sweet Bobby so far, and if you're enjoying the

series, please leave us a review or share it with a friend. It really helps get the word out. And if you've been catfished yourself and want to get in touch, then please email us at sweetbobby at tortoismedia.com. I'm actually going to be hosting a live Q&A on the making of the podcast soon. If you want to follow me for updates on that or any other Sweet Bobby news, I'm at Alexi Mostras on Twitter. That's it. See you next week. you