Warning: Spoilers ahead for Netflix’s “Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare” and the earlier podcast “Sweet Bobby.”
Kirat Assi, the subject of “Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare,” is still hoping that police will pursue her catfisher after reporting them six years ago.
Officers in London told Business Insider that they were again investigating her case after initially dropping it. (Sky News was first to report the development.)
The Netflix show plays on two recent hot topics in streaming: true crime and scams, where extra publicity can shed new light on the cases.
Here are some of the twists not captured in the show.
An 8-year deception
In 2010, Assi, a radio presenter from London, began a friendship over Facebook with a man she believed was Bobby Jandu, a wealthy heart doctor.
She later thought she met his family on Facebook after the relationship turned romantic and the pair got engaged without ever meeting.
Assi was deceived. In 2018 she found that Simran Bhogal, her second cousin, created the elaborate fiction with a web of accounts in a particularly sophisticated example of catfishing.
By then, Assi had found and confronted the real Jandu, who had no idea who she was.
Jandu and Assi reported Bhogal to the police in the UK. But catfishing is not a crime under UK law, and Bhogal was not charged or prosecuted.
Assi sued Bhogal in English courts in a 2020 civil case. The pair settled a year later, with Assi getting financial compensation and an apology letter that could be shown to a limited set of people.
Here’s what the documentary missed out on Assi’s journey for justice.
Bhogal’s attorneys made their own allegations
In episode five of the 2021 podcast series “Sweet Bobby,” which publicized Assi’s story before the Netflix release, host Alexi Mostrous said that Assi hired two lawyers.
Amrit Maan and Yair Cohen helped her pursue legal action against Bhogal in the months following her first interactions with London’s Metropolitan Police.
While Maan tried to help Assi get the police to investigate, Cohen represented Assi in the UK’s civil courts.
Mostrous said Assi then sent a letter threatening legal action against Boghal, accusing her of harassment, misusing Assi’s private information, and breaching data protection laws.
Bhogal’s attorney responded by accusing Assi of grooming Bhogal because the online relationship began when Bhogal was a child and Assi was 32, Mostrous reported. The attorneys also claimed that Assi always knew Bhogal was pretending to be Bobby and threatened to go public with the allegation if the lawsuit wasn’t dropped.
Assi said in the podcast: “It’s outrageous. I just thought that’s so low and so disgusting of you. You’ve already confessed.”
Assi did not back down.
In episode six of the podcast, Mostrous said Bhogal offered a payout and a semi-private apology letter to settle the case in the spring of 2021. Mostrous said Assi wanted a public apology but accepted the settlement after speaking to her lawyers.
Assi has appealed to the police to investigate the crime
In the Netflix documentary, Assi said the police in London did not take her claim seriously and thought that Jandu and his wife were the real victims of the catfishing case.
The Metropolitan Police dropped the case in 2019, citing a lack of evidence.
But on Friday, a spokesperson told Business Insider that it was again investigating, and was “actively working with” Assi.
It followed Assi complaining about the handling of her case to the UK’s Independent Office for Police Conduct.
The IOPC told BI that it found fault with the initial response and asked the Met to review its investigation process.
It wasn’t clear precisely when or why the Met reopened its case.
The post Netflix’s ‘Sweet Bobby’ follows an 8-year catfishing. Here’s what happened after the victim learned the truth. appeared first on Business Insider.
