NEW: Hannah is my ex-step daughter. And when I was in middle of my Cambridge Analytica investigation, she had a stalker. Stalkers. For years. A whole cast of characters making her life hell. In 2021, I approached the BBC: could we try & nail the perpetrator(s)? 1/ podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/s... - ThreadSky

carolecadwalla.bsky.social • 95 days ago

NEW: Hannah is my ex-step daughter. And when I was in middle of my Cambridge Analytica investigation, she had a stalker. Stalkers. For years. A whole cast of characters making her life hell. In 2021, I approached the BBC: could we try & nail the perpetrator(s)?
1/

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/stalked/id1793748839?i=1000688776194

Comments

alistairblantyre.bsky.social•95 days ago

😮

sybilivw.bsky.social•94 days ago

📌

superempath.bsky.social•95 days ago

Stalking family members to scare targets is very common…if you can’t be intimidated they know they can get to you through family especially children.

cissybgood67.bsky.social•95 days ago

Omg that's horrifying! I'm so sorry. 💔

Every one of those monsters needs taken to task in a way that becomes legendary, even in Hell.

mattriv.bsky.social•94 days ago

Incredible. Cannot wait to listen.

weduckworth.bsky.social•95 days ago

📌

jennietrott.bsky.social•94 days ago

📌

soletraveler.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

infosecafrica.bsky.social•95 days ago

Thank you to you and Hannah for your courage in seeing this through - it should be a standard consideration for technology developers to consider how their product could be misused/abused #EthicsByDesign

annaleehq.bsky.social•95 days ago

📌

carolecadwalla.bsky.social•95 days ago

This was Han during those years. You would never know how much she was hiding from the world. Every day brought a new wave of abuse & threats that she dealt with alone. She finally opened up & told me the whole story in the dark winter lockdown of 2021.
2/

deborah-c.bsky.social•95 days ago

Looking radiant despite everything!

carolecadwalla.bsky.social•95 days ago

It was wildly complex & confusing. But it was also clear where this could end. A young woman from Hannah’s school, with whom she shared a group of friends, was murdered by her stalker. And there was a common thread: the police hadn’t taken the action required
3/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/26/soldier-guilty-of-stalking-and-murdering-ex-girlfriend-alice-ruggles

carolecadwalla.bsky.social•95 days ago

In Hannah’s case, the police had tried to arrest a suspect, but then just gave up. The case was too difficult. So in 2021, I turned to Georgia Catt. She produced the incredible The Missing Crypoqueen, a podcast that changed how I thought about investigative journalism & how to tell stories.
4/

carolecadwalla.bsky.social•95 days ago

It’s only because of the incredible commitment of Georgia & her fellow producer Rob Byrne & actually the resolution of the BBC that this project has seen the light of day. Everything about this story has been a challenge. Right up to the last minute. But today we launch. 🤞
5/

carolecadwalla.bsky.social•95 days ago

We do what the police failed to. We investigate. And we name the man who we have reasonable grounds to suspect did this to her. It’s punchy. Meanwhile, the investigation is still unfolding. Something most stalking victims - mostly women - are denied.
6/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/sep/27/stalking-victims-left-at-serious-risk-by-police-failures-report-finds

o-my.bsky.social•95 days ago

carolecadwalla.bsky.social•95 days ago

Along the way, I also made my own discoveries - about myself. Technology was at the heart of how Hannah was stalked & harrassed. But it was only doing the podcast, that I realised the overlap between her story & my own. This was Hannah with me during my own trial. Facing my own persecutor.
7/

stevebasnett.bsky.social•95 days ago

#6. It can't be right, can it? The police say never take matters into your own hands. But when they won't or can't - and on such serious matters they downplay - you have to, right?

stevebasnett.bsky.social•95 days ago

#5. Congratulations and flippin' well done to you, Hannah, Georgia, Rob, the BBC and all who got you to this point. I'd be in no doubt it took great perseverance.

stevebasnett.bsky.social•95 days ago

#4. It's extraordinary how things like policing failures can lead to learning from others. This is a wonderful insight, Carole, into part of what got you where you are today in terms of other tremendous output.

Might've encountered the Cryptoqueen story - partly through Georgia Catt. Ruja Ignatova?

stevebasnett.bsky.social•95 days ago

#3. Policing (and societal) priorities are sickening. And self evidently misogynistic. There really has to be a fundamental shift away from the protection of, say, property of the wealthy, in favour of the far more important well being and lives of women and girls. It HAS to be taken more seriously.

dizdastardly.bsky.social•95 days ago

But you get jailed for protesting climate change.

stevebasnett.bsky.social•95 days ago

An example I had in mind while writing those words, @dizdastardly.bsky.social. Even detained 'on suspicion of' making your way to a peaceful demonstration regarding all manner of environment protection we all fundamentally depend on. That's perverse. An inversion of the way round it should be.

dizdastardly.bsky.social•95 days ago

For me it's examples like that which make me skeptical of the rule of law as a whole. Also the ability for the rich to avoid jail and sentences, by soaking up fines the poor cannot. SLAPP suits to silence the plebs, domestic violence cases that never get to court. Its hard to believe in justice.

stevebasnett.bsky.social•95 days ago

#2. Lovely photos - you just wouldn't know. It looks like a getaway from it all which was perhaps more needed and appreciated than realised? Although it shouldn't be necessary in the first place, maybe distance and beautiful nature is a temporary but practical way to cope?

staceyryn.bsky.social•94 days ago

Just followed on Apple. Just wanted to drop a line of admiration for all you do in journalism.

carolecadwalla.bsky.social•94 days ago

Thank you so much

stevebasnett.bsky.social•95 days ago

#1. Thank you to both you and Hannah for sharing this here. I will of course repost this thread. My belief is that this is more widespread than is commonly thought, and there are many more suffering serious trauma from stalking and cyber stalking than we imagine. It shouldn't be this way.

nes-tor.bsky.social•94 days ago

Smartphones became a reliable weapon

stevebasnett.bsky.social•94 days ago

You're right, Nestor. They are an incredibly powerful tool which can bring us much joy, information and education, but they can also be misused and abused and turned into a weapon against us.

nes-tor.bsky.social•94 days ago

This last seen feature on WhatsApp revealed some potential fb's true colours:
- oh you were online
- really now I'm toggling you offline, you stalker.

stevebasnett.bsky.social•94 days ago

I find it deeply problematic how some organisations - even ones we have previously trusted - capture and use data from and about us without us realising or knowing what they do with it, and in some cases use back against us for their own gain. Maybe it should be viewed as a kind of unseen stalking?

davefire49.bsky.social•95 days ago

Is this a modern phenomena because I can't remember it being reported when I was younger.

nickalart.bsky.social•95 days ago

Nope, I know many older women personally who had stalkers long before the internet! One with a stalker who only stopped because he got cancer and died.

The problem is that it often wasn't and isn't taken seriously even though a portion of stalkings end in murder.

arthurga.bsky.social•95 days ago

The early 1980s song Every Breath You Take by Sting is about a stalker.

ishabluebell.bsky.social•94 days ago

People who were stalked reported to the police. And were told that they couldn't do anything unless they were physically attacked. So not modern.

There's an example in my reshare of Carole's post.

https://bsky.app/profile/ishabluebell.bsky.social/post/3lhf5eetizk2l

#stalking

dutchess1970.bsky.social•94 days ago

If you read reports in newspapers from the late 19th century all the way to at least the fifties, you would see the man is described as "overwhelmed by passion" for the woman he stalked (and murdered) It was romanticised. 'Crime passionel'

davefire49.bsky.social•94 days ago

I don't go back that far only 10 in 1959. Grateful I can remember back that far.

dutchess1970.bsky.social•94 days ago

That is why there are history books.

moonmayor.bsky.social•95 days ago

Dude, it's the story of people joining together to protect each other from stalkers, police who don't do shit and an oblivious public.

So using the context clues, you fucking figure it out

nocatsnomasters.bsky.social•95 days ago

Two things.

The first is that it used to be taken even less seriously and women were even less believed about it than it is today. And even when it ended in murder, it wasn't investigated, or called stalking when it was investigated.

nocatsnomasters.bsky.social•95 days ago

The second is that the tools to enable putting the pieces together, both technological and social, are much stronger now. 'stalking', as a phenomenon, describes a _pattern_ of behavior over a period of time. Without the ability to see and describe the pattern, there's no phenomenon.

nocatsnomasters.bsky.social•95 days ago

And it takes a lot to make a pattern stand out against the background drumbeat of violent misogyny that characterizes most of the human world.

tallahopper.bsky.social•95 days ago

I'm now in my 70s and was physically stalked for a few months in my 20s. It was fairly common amongst my friends, but not taken seriously by anyone in authority so we wouldn't bother reporting it. It was creepy then, must be much worse now with online access.

redsage.bsky.social•95 days ago

Technology has certainly provided a lot of new tools for stalkers, but stalking has existed long before this. It just often isn’t taken seriously, so it would have been less likely to be in the news when you were young.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply