Who Trolled Amber? - Sweet Bobby - Episode 3: Confession

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

Bobby is now closer than ever – and yet he keeps slipping through Kirat's grasp. After being pushed to breaking point, she makes the life changing decision to confront him – and discovers the truth...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.

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show of glamour and scandal and political intrigue and a battle for the soul of a 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 Pretty much since this podcast started,

since I first got hold of Kireat's witness statement back in June, I've wanted to speak to the man at the centre of this whole scam. I'm talking about the real Bobby. Yeah, I know, he looks like a puppy. I thought he was a puppy. The guy whose identity the catfisher used to trick Kirat for all those years. Because even after months of looking into this story, I still don't know how much Bobby knows

about the deception, about the catfisher, about everything. For weeks, Amrit, a lawyer who's been helping Kirat, has been trying to set up a meeting. And then one weekend, as I was watching TV with my children, I get a call. Hi, is that Bobby? Yeah, the real Bobby. Bobby wants to meet.

It is an insane story. So Gary, my producer, Amrit, Kirat's friend, and I, we head down to Brighton. And standing by a table waiting to meet us, there he is. In the flesh. It's Bobby. And look, I can't lie, it's a pretty weird experience. It's like the main character from a film you've been watching on Netflix suddenly appearing in front of you.

This handsome, charismatic guy from Kenya, just as Kirat described him. We talked for hours that night in a busy steakhouse just outside the city centre. And I get a lot of answers, but I can't use them, because Bobby still isn't sure about an interview. He asks that this meeting be off the record. So we leave for London without knowing, ultimately, if he trusts us and if he trusts us to tell his story. And London, Victoria, this train is formed of four coaches.

So that's where we left it. We might speak to them next week. They said that they'd think about it. I really hope that they agree. But fingers crossed. Here's our train. I really hope that they agree, but fingers crossed. Here's our train. But then, and sometimes this just happens, we get lucky. Bobby agrees to an interview. Maybe he just felt like this was the right time to speak. Or maybe Amrit was really persuasive. I don't know.

But whatever the case, we head down to Brighton again, this time to Bobby's friend's house, a friend with a very sweet dog. He is the best dog in the world. And these questions that I've had in my head for months, I finally get to ask them. What's your name? My name is Bobby. How old are you? I've just turned 37. Have you ever been a cardiologist?

No, not at all. Have you ever been in witness protection? Not that I can say on a podcast. No, I haven't. I haven't. Have you ever been in a hospital for a long period of time? Not longer than a day. Have you ever been in a relationship with Harker and Asi? Absolutely not. I'm Alexi Mostras from Tortoise Media.

You're listening to Sweet Bobby. Episode 3, Confession I was really excited. I was obviously watching his flight land. I was like, oh my God, look, look, look, look, he's coming, he's coming kind of thing. It was like that and I was really excited. It's 2018 and Kirat is waiting for Bobby to arrive in London. It's nearly eight years since he first approached her on Facebook and they became friends. It was such a strange feeling to know that he was here in the UK.

Three years since Bobby told Kirat he was in love with her and they started a long distance relationship. This is the man that Kirat wanted to marry, to start a family with. My mind was racing as in like, how's it going to feel? Oh my God, is it going to be awkward? All those questions, am I going to be good enough? Finally, he makes good on his promise. And a few days after Kirat's birthday in February, he arrives. For Kirat, this is huge.

It's the moment when she thinks that her dreams might actually come true. Instead, it's where her nightmare really begins. Because the excuses don't stop. So when he first came to London, he was staying at the Marriott in South Kensington. Bobby tells Kirat that he's staying at an exclusive hotel in South Kensington, but he still refuses to see her. And at that point, why won't he come down and see you? He's not ready to. He's not ready to see me.

Why not? Well, for a long time, well he wasn't in the right headspace and then later on, a couple of weeks later, we find out he wasn't feeling well again, slowly. Until this point in the story, most of what had happened to Keira had happened online between New York and London in voice notes, messages and phone calls. But now the story shifts to somewhere more tangible.

Bobby and Kirat are in the same city, seemingly only a short car ride away from each other, and Kirat feels like everything is finally in touching distance. And yet, like that Greek myth where a man is condemned to spend eternity right next to a tree whose delicious fruit he can almost touch but not quite, Kirat finds that however close Bobby gets, he always ultimately slips through her fingers. Like when she went to the Marriott Hotel one time to see him. So I'd asked for him at reception and they told me he wasn't here. And I felt sick because, you know, Bobby had lied to me so much in the past

and I was beginning to question everything all over again. And I, instead of messaging him, I messaged Simran to say, I'm here at the Marriott, I've come to deliver a fat flower to him, a rose to him, and to say, you know, it's OK, it's just me. And they're telling me that he's not here. Kirat was in touch with Simran, her younger cousin, a lot at this point. Simran was often the person that Kirat would turn to for advice about Bobby, or at least to tell her what was going on. And he's messaged me to

say, is that you downstairs? They've just called up to say that somebody's downstairs asking for you. And he explained that he told them that he doesn't want to be seen by anybody if anyone asks for him, that nobody should know that he's here. And what was going through your head at that time? Did you think that he was upstairs and didn't want to see you? Did you entertain the possibility that he might not have been here at all? No, I just, I was just upset that he wouldn't see me. I wasn't thinking that he wasn't here. Bobby seems overwhelmed by being back in the UK

after so many years in witness protection. And then his grandmother becomes ill, meaning he has to spend some time with her. But then a more serious obstacle comes up. Bobby says that a cancer he's been battling has returned. He says that's the real reason he can't face seeing Kirat. And Bobby's friends and family, well, they're saying the same thing. They're telling Kirat, don't push Bobby too far.

Don't nag him, don't be overbearing. Yes, he's in the UK, but give him some space. The pressure feels like it's coming at Kirat from all sides. Even though she'd asked him not to, Bobby had told her family that he's in the UK, so naturally they expected Kira to bring him home for a visit. But he still won't see her, so she starts covering for Bobby. She tells her family she has met him, that she's looking after him.

I was like, you need to explain to my mum. I said, I'm covering your tracks everywhere. I'm lying for you. I'm covering up for you. You're putting me in an awful position and you're supposed to love me. I think this is one of the hardest bits of Kirat's story for me to listen to. Bobby could do almost anything at this stage, think up any excuse and he could still keep control. So for a whole summer, Bobby keeps Kirat on tenterhooks, keeps breaking promises, keeps lying to her. And Kirat was forced to keep up the pretense, telling her mum that she's going to see Bobby and instead sitting in her car alone for hours. And all this gaslighting, it eventually begins to loosen her grip on reality.

I said I don't care what's going to happen to me today because I don't know how to face my family anymore. I wanted to go home and tell everybody everything and say how he was behaving. But at the same time, I knew if I did that, I'm just giving my family and community, everyone would lay into me and I've just had nothing left to show for myself. So I would rather have just not existed,

and I didn't care what happened to me, and I just said to him, I'm just going to go walking. I don't know, I said, I'm going to leave my car here, put it in lock here, I said, I'm probably going to drop my car keys down a drain somewhere. And I said, I'm just going to go walking and I'm not going to come back. I said, you can explain to my family what happened to me and why it happened. What did you mean that you weren't going to come back?

I don't know. I just didn't know where my head was at. I wasn't going to hurt myself. But I was just going to wander around and don't know. Something happened to me. It did or it didn't. If I ended up somewhere I just don't know where my head was at I was so distraught I just didn't know how to keep going back home and keeping up this pretense

and you know you don't want to do anything to yourself you love your family but I just didn't understand how I was such a horrible person You know you don't want to do anything to yourself, you love your family. But I just didn't understand how I was such a horrible person. I've seen him through everything. Through strokes, a heart transplant, cancer. You know. I never imagined myself in this position. And I never imagined that you would waver when it comes to committing to me.

Kirat was becoming increasingly fragile. When I think to how Kirat was before she met Bobby, this happy, vibrant person with so much going on for her, reduced to this. Broken my heart. Broken and shattered my dreams. I thought you loved me. I love you, but I can't do this. I can't be pushed aside while you think

that I'm supposed to be a part of your life. There were loads of excuses, mostly like, I'm just getting this done today, I need this done today i need to hospital staff there's hospital stuff he wanted me to be out with him but then he'd go himself can i ask you a question i think might you know a lot of listeners listening might might might want to ask as well which is you know you've been waiting years to see this this guy fair enough he might want to go to hospital appointments on his own or get his house clean. But if he's going to the dentist, why doesn't he meet you for a coffee outside the station before he goes in?

It doesn't make sense that he didn't want to see you, given your history. He wasn't saying that he didn't want to see me. He was saying he wasn't ready to see me. On one level, Kirat believed what Bobby was telling her, that his health was fragile. But on a deeper level, she knew something was wrong. I think there was a particular phone call where it didn't sound like he was here, because he is quite noisy. where it didn't sound like he was here, because he is quite noisy. And I just felt something was wrong.

I'd emailed a private investigator. So, yeah, I didn't want to know anything too much. All I wanted was his current address, because my gut told me he wasn't in Kensington. Yeah, Kirat hired a private investigator. She's at the point now where she needs to know the truth. But she doesn't ask him for much, only for Bobby's most recent address.

And the investigator comes back with something concrete, but it's not in Kensington. Bobby's in Brighton, 80 miles away. And Kirat doesn't know what to do with this information. Bobby had to be hiding something, she knew that, but what? Finally, on the 9th of June 2018, Kirat reached breaking point. She had been getting ready to go to Birmingham with her mum, but when she mentioned this to Bobby over the phone, he hung up. He wasn't happy.

Kirat had been planning to go shopping, but this argument had ruined that, so not for the first time, she got into her car, just to go for a drive and clear her head. But this time, it wasn't aimless. So I just thought, you know, I was not in the mood to go to Westfield anymore, and I thought I'd go to, just go for a drive. Went up onto the motorwayway and as I was driving, I got to the M25, saw signs for Gatwick,

and I thought, you know, screw it, I've got the address. Why don't I just go to Brighton and just see him? Kirit decides it's time to confront him. And when I heard the story for the first time, I was willing her on. Go to Brighton, I was thinking. Be brave. Just do it. Because how much grief can one woman take? This deceit had been going on now for eight years,

and the catfisher showed no signs of stopping. If Kirat didn't do something herself to drag out the truth, there's no reason to believe that things just wouldn't have kept going. So I just thought I'm going to go. I'm going to show him that there's nothing to be scared of. So I thought I'm just going to go. What's he going to do? What's the worst that's going to happen? When we were making this podcast, I hired a car and made that same journey with Kirat sitting in the passenger seat from Hounslow, northwest London to Brighton. It takes about two

and a half hours so we had plenty of time to talk through what happened on the same journey three years before yeah and it must have been as well a kind of sense that the present situation was intolerable you couldn't carry on as you as you were doing yeah you just how can you be in the same place as me just miles away from me and not wanting to see me after everything that we've been through so I was driving down and he kept on calling and he kept on calling and I could see the messages popping up on the screen as I was driving down and I was like when I get to a service station I'll call you and this was the service station I pulled into. It's called Pease Pottage the name was weird

enough that Kirat remembers it today and it's the last service station before you get to Brighton and it's here that Kirat pulled in to catch her breath but she wasn't alone. Bobby was still calling, calling, calling. Only this time, when she picked up, Kirat kept something back. You didn't tell him where you were? No. Up until this point, Kirat had just been following signs to Brighton. But now she typed into her sat-nav the exact address she'd been given by the private investigator. But now she typed into her sat-nav the exact address she'd been given by the private investigator.

So you were sitting in a parking space probably not too far away from where we are now. And did you have that moment, that fork in the road moment, when you thought, OK, I can either carry on to Brighton or turn around and go back. Actually, I remember when I drove out, I did wait at the roundabout. I did hesitate. And there was probably 10 seconds where I'd gone, home, Brighton, home, Brighton, Brighton, let's just go. Big choice.

Yeah. But I needed to know. I did need to know. We're now in June 2018. And finally, in the space of a few days, this whole edifice of lies, the catfishing deceit, well, it all comes crashing down. And it was all thanks to a split-second decision of Kirat's to turn left and not right at the roundabout out of Pease Pottage service station. Not back to London, but to Brighton and towards the truth. You're OK?

Yeah. Yeah? I'm just going to pull in here. It was like a domino effect, and the first domino falls when Kira pulls up outside Bobby's front door. It all came crashing down. I still didn't think he wasn't...

I still didn't think he wasn't... I still didn't ever think at this point that he wasn't him. Yeah. But it was where everything came crashing down that the relationship ended. Okay, so Saturday evening, about 7 o'clock... This is the real Bobby. I'm sitting in his best friend's front room,

and he's telling me about that day in Brighton. It was a life-changing day for both Kirat and Bobby, a day when the catfish's fantasy collided with reality. And in fact, listening to this podcast will be the first time that Kierat and Bobby have heard each other's version of that day. It took me a while to get out of the car. I remember ringing the doorbell.

I think it was the doorbell, yeah. I'm with my wife, my son. We're upstairs and we're trying to put him to sleep. There's a ring at the doorbell. Nobody answered. I didn't know if anybody was home. I was beginning to recognize things from photographs that had been sent to me i go downstairs who could that be so i started walking away i don't think i gave him enough time to be honest i was that nervous open the door nobody there i look beyond our driveway and a lady's walking away from the house. She turns, we make

eye contact and I see rage. I see a lot of aggression and she turns around and starts walking back towards me and just starts really aggressively saying, how could you? How dare you? How dare you? Eight years, eight years. And I'm thinking, whoa, lady, who are you? What do you want? I've never seen you in my life, please. And I'm thinking, this lady needs help. Who is she? And I was like, it's me. And he's like, I don't understand. You've got me confused for my brother. My brother and I are often confused for the same person. Maybe you think I'm my brother, Jay. I was just confused.

I was just like, why are you being like this? She's like, nope, this is who you are. She names our names. She says our names. And I was like, whoa, okay. She's definitely got the right people. Really shell-shocked. Now we're getting a little bit frightened.

What are you being like this for? And then out walked the ex-wife. And then I was like, okay, he's pretending. That's why he's not anything to me, not being, you know, he's warning me off. It was for me, it was like he was warning me off, like, go away, because she's here. So that's what I thought was happening. He's been living a double life. From Kirat's perspective, it was horribly clear.

Bobby had been lying to her about where he was and about who he was with. He'd clearly got back together with his ex-wife, SC, and was trying to pretend he didn't know who Kirat was. She couldn't have known at this point that Bobby had in fact never left his wife and had been happily married for years. I don't know what's going on at this time my wife and son come to the doorstep and my wife was like Bobby who is this lady and I'm like I was like I don't know who this person is I've never seen her in my life.

And thankfully, my wife and I have this trusting relationship. She took my word for it. And we were like, OK, what is this? What is this, you know? In the confusion, Kirat gets out her phone to show Bobby that she has him saved. It's got a picture that I look closely. It's me. I'm looking at my own face on her phone

I can't even deny it I'm like that's me but a phone number that's not mine and I was like okay so that's not my phone number she's like you liar so I gave him my number so I didn't wasn't scared of giving it to him because he had it anyway as far as I was concerned yeah and he rang my phone and it didn't come up his name didn't come up and I just said to me you've had so many numbers you've been lying how do I know like this is could be another number yeah at that point I remember her phone ringing and it was my face that came up on her phone. And I looked at her and I looked at her phone.

I'm like, I'm not calling you. That's not me. And she seemed very confused. She answered the phone. She spoke. I don't know what was said. And at that point, she put the phone down. I was like, I'm right here.

I hope you now understand that's not me. What Kirat thought at this point was, aha, Bobby's wife has gone back inside to call Kirat from a different phone. She's in on this whole scam too. And she then gets, then she says, I'm going to call Simran. I'm like, the only Simran I knew was somebody that had a relationship with my brother a long time before. So I was like, is that Simran Bogle by any chance? Let me speak to her as well, please, because I need to figure out what's going on so she calls she's

like hi simran i'm here he's he's denying everything i don't know what to do i'm not sure what's going on and i was like harker can i speak to simran please she gives me the phone i'm like simran who is this person what is she doing outside our house? She knows everything about me. Who is she? Simran says something like, she's my cousin. She's a bit confused. Let me figure out what's going on. Please, could you hand her the phone back

and I'll try and figure it out. Simran, who has been beside Kirat for so much of this turmoil, a bridge between her life with Bobby and the real world, Simran gets on the phone and calms Bobby down. And she also manages to placate Kirat. They were having a conversation like they knew each other, so there wasn't any doubt about that. The fact that they had that conversation and that Simran was then saying to me,

don't worry, don't worry, he loves you, don't worry, don't worry, and that it's all his ex-wife who he was there with, that kind of reinforced the fact that I was right. I'd caught him red-handed. Why would he speak to Simran otherwise? Kirat, distraught, upset, sits down on the grass outside Bobby's house. Bobby's wife tries to calm her down, but by this point, Kirat needs to leave.

So she gets back into her car and heads home, almost unable to see because she was crying so much. Driving back, I had someone on the phone. I was just frantic all the way. I was crying, screaming, crying. And she was trying to keep me calm. What was she saying? She just kept telling me it's not true.

Essie's making him do this. And what were you thinking in terms of the implications for your life? At that point, I wasn't thinking the implications of... I wasn't... I couldn't think. Right. I was just in pain. Hmm. It must have felt almost like a death.

Yeah. Well, it was the death of a relationship, but it felt worse a couple of days later. How so? Because none of these people were real. At this point, imagine, how would you feel if your whole thirties were taken up by a friendship which turned into a relationship and after years of difficulties,

when it all seemed finally to be working out, you catch your partner in a huge lie. And an entire decade of your life now seems to have been for nothing. 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. Here's a show that we recommend. A story of glamour and scandal and political intrigue and a battle for the soul of a 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 And she walks off. We're like, okay, we shut the door, all the latches back on. We go inside. Straight away,

we start to call the police. When Kirat was leaving Bobby's, the last thing she heard him say was that he was going to go to the police. So what I actually think now is that was an understandable response. Bobby knew nothing about the deceit. He'd never seen Kirat before. All he and his wife knew was that some strange woman had turned up and shouted at them. A woman who knew all their personal details, their names, their son's name. They didn't know if she was dangerous or not. How could they? And it turns out Kirat had similar concerns.

While Bobby called up the police in Brighton, Kirat went to her local station in Hounslow and she took Simran, her cousin, with her. Simran had heard a lot of what unfolded in Brighton on the phone, so she could act as a witness. They filed a report, and then they went back to Kirat's. Kirat's mum was there. Simran reassured them that Bobby really did love Kirat. She said she thought it must be his wife blackmailing him.

But despite this, when Kirat went to bed that night, she knew her world had changed. But there was one more domino yet to fall and it finally came crashing down a day later, on June 11th, 2018. Simran was supposed to come and work from here on the Monday morning. But she took ages. I was a bit frustrated because that wasn't like her. And I was pacing up and down my room just messaging people

and the car eventually pulled up. She didn't get out immediately and I could see her and her brother arguing in the car there were hand gestures going on between them so I wasn't sure what was going on it didn't feel normal and I from here I just uh I had my phone in my hand still and I went straight downstairs to open the door. Sorry, this is tough. Simran had offered to come round and work from home with Kirat, to keep her company as she processed the horrendous events of the weekend. So Kirat was expecting her to arrive early, with all her work stuff. But when she showed up at around 11, Simran was

in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt. She showed up at around 11. Simran was in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. Well, that's not like her. Where's her work bag and whatever else? That morning before she'd come, she'd been talking to me. I'd felt really sorry for her, for how smart she was, for her to have been taken in by all of this as well.

And I was like, you know, I'm so sorry that you've been had as well. And she was like, no, I haven't been truthful, honest with you. You know, when I went to see him in New York, I didn't see him. He asked me to say that to you so you wouldn't worry. So obviously I was angry at her. I was like, why did you do that? The day before, at the police station, Simran had told the police that she had seen Bobby in New York.

And now that wasn't true. Simran was one of the only people in the real world who had seen Bobby in the flesh. In 2017, she'd gone to New York on a work trip and visited him in hospital. Or at least that's what she had told Kira. If she wasn't telling the truth about that, what did that mean? And she was just stood in the doorway and I said, you're not going to come in?

And she said, I don't think I should come in and she said I need to tell you something and I was like what? you know so I'm just really annoyed about what you told me why did you lie to me and she said no I need to tell you something it was all me

and I didn't understand absolutely didn't understand what she meant by that I was like what do you mean it was all me and she said I was I was Bobby. Bobby's me. And I still didn't grasp what she was saying. I was like

who's telling you to say this? Have they threatened you as well? So why are you saying this to me? And she said, no, it was all me. I wasn't quite grasping it, and I could see that her brother was still in the car outside. And she said, I had to tell my mum and dad this morning. They don't know everything, but they they know and that's why I'm late

and again my head wasn't registering it quite and I was saying to her I was calling out all the different names and I said what about this person this person and this person

and this person and she said that's about this person, this person, and this person, and this person, and he said, that's all me. And at that point, I think at that point I fell back. I kind of collapsed. I've stood in Kirat's hallway and tried to picture this scene. The initial foreboding that something was wrong. Kirat opening the door and seeing Simran and then hearing the words come out of her mouth. It was all me.

And all I could do, I was just called my best friend. And I was like, just come over now. Now I was screaming down the phone to her, just like, come over, I need just called my best friend. And I was like, just come over now. Now I was screaming down the phone to her, just like, come over, I need you to come over now. Harvey, Kirat's best friend, raced over. They lived just down the street from each other. And I get there and she was like, it's not real. The front door was open, so I just ran in

and I was just trying to pick her up off the floor, but she was inconsolable. There was a girl there. I didn't know who she was. And, yeah, like a really impassive face. If you can picture it, Kirat was slumped against the wall, with Harvey now by her side. Simran was sitting on the stairs, facing towards the door. And she was just saying, tell her what you told me.

And she just, like, came to me on the floor and she just put her arms around me. And I was trying to explain to her that Bobby is Simran. And I couldn't, I just couldn't understand it. I just couldn't. And I kept screaming at her. Like, why? Why did you do this? Why?

You know, why would you do this? Why would you? Ten years of my life. You've stolen ten years of my life. Why didn't you stop you know how could you be so sick you had every chance to stop you had a million and one chances to stop I tried to end the relationship so many times you could have just stopped I would have never known the better any better you could have stopped but you chose not to. Why? It was just like constantly, why?

What did I ever do to you? What did I do to deserve this? Have I done anything to you? It was just... The brother went back to the car and she came in and sat down on the second step of our staircase. in and sat down on the second step of our staircase. She was facing, not the front door,

so she's facing sideways towards me. In all the chaos of that morning, one of the things that stands out for Harvey, for Kira and for me, is the way Simran seems to have behaved. No sign of empathy or regret. According to both Kira and Harvey, her delivery just seemed to be flat, a statement of facts with no real explanation. When she confessed, did she apologize at all or was it a statement of... No, there was never a sorry. Sorry didn't come out of her mouth once. She never said sorry?

No. So... It was... That's what's so poignant. There wasn't a sorry and it was, I've ruined my own life. Simran appeared to be more concerned about what this confession meant for her rather than for Kirat.

And then while I was on the floor in the state I was in, I just suddenly had this whole horror moment of who have I been sleeping with on the phone for the last three years? And she said me and when she said that that's when I really started vomiting and passed out do you do you remember like in your in your mind how, whether there were stages in your mind's reaction to this information? So was the first stage, Simran is telling me that she's Bobby. And was there then a gap and then a kind of realization that she's, that means that she must have been all these characters? I don't think it was processing the information at all, to be honest.

It was just that she kept saying it was all me. And it was understanding what all meant. If you're Bobby, then who was that person and that person if Bobby was you then those people couldn't be them but they're real people it was really difficult to understand knowing I'd met the real Bobby knowing that I knew his family how could she be the real Bobby? Knowing that I knew his family.

How could she be the real Bobby? On the face of it, Simran's confession is the last domino in this terrible story. The truth was out. The person behind the deceit, from that very first message from Bobby, was a young woman called Simran Bogle. It was the last person Kirat would have expected. It was the last person I expected. Because Simran doesn't fit the profile of a typical catfisher like you might be imagining.

She isn't an older man trying to act out a fantasy. She's young, a young woman, a relative. And she was a golden girl, a head girl at her school, who now works in the city as a high-powered executive. It was a profile that surprised all the experts we spoke to. Still, we do have her identity. And now you do too. And that means you're pretty much in the same place as I was when I finished reading Kirat's witness statement.

So in one way, Kirat's story ends here, in 2018. Perpetrator unmasked. Job done. But actually, I think there's a lot more to do. Because even though Simran confessed to the catfish, Kirat is still fighting for justice today. The British police have so far refused to investigate. Simran is still in her high-powered job. And from the outside, her life barely seems to have changed. And thanks to her aggressive lawyers, and I'll get into this more later, almost no one in Kirat's community is allowed to know the whole truth.

The situation feels unfinished, unsatisfactory. So I'm going to try and do something a bit different. I'm going to shift from telling you a historical story to carrying out a live investigation. An investigation that tries to ask why, rather than just who. Why did Simran do what she did? And why has Kirat, along with countless others who feel they've been victims of online harm, struggled so hard to get justice? struggled so hard to get justice.

I don't know what the investigation will throw up or how this story will end, but I think it all starts with getting hold of Simran herself. OK, there we go. BEEPING BEEPING OK, there we go. Hi, Simran speaking. Hey, is that Simran Bogle? Hello?

Hi, Simran speaking. Hey, sorry, I think we're getting cut off a bit. Is that Simran Bogle? It is, yes. Next week on Sweet Bobby, we delve into the mind of the catfisher, and we discover that Simran has done this before. While making the series, Simran's lawyers gave us this statement on her behalf. This matter concerns a family dispute over events that began over a decade ago, when I was a schoolgirl.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a private family matter that has been resolved, and I strongly object to the numerous unfounded and seriously defamatory accusations that have been made about me, as well as details of private matters that have been shared with the media. Thanks for listening to episode three of Sweet Bobby. If you enjoyed it, we'd love you to leave us a review and to tell a friend about the series. It really helps us get the word out. And if you can't wait until next week for episode four,

it's already available for Tortoise members. Just download the app and take a 30-day free trial for early ad-free access to every episode.