Netflix has launched a feature documentary film “Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare”. The film depicts the events underlying a ground-breaking 2020 privacy claim, brought over a nine year cat-fishing campaign.
The film follows a hit 2021 podcast by Tortoise Media covering the same story. Both are accounts of the romantic relationship between the victim of the campaign, Kirat Assi, and a seemingly eligible man she meets online, “Bobby”.
Far from being the perfect online match which he initially appeared to be, Bobby was in fact a fictitious character created as part of a sophisticated and complex deception, carried out by someone known to Ms Assi.
As now recorded in the film, the events it describes were the focus of a privacy claim by Ms Assi against the perpetrator. The claim was issued in October 2020 and settled, by the payment of compensation and the making of private apology, by a Court Order dated 14 June 2021.
The claim for damages and injunctive relief, which was brought in misuse of private information, harassment, and under the GDPR, and without anonymising the parties, is thought to be the first successful civil claim relating to a cat-fishing scam in this country, and in the common law world.
Gervase de Wilde of 5RB acted for Ms Assi, instructed by Yair Cohen and Filiz Kiani of Cohen Davis Solicitors.
The film is available now on Netflix.
The podcast is available on all platforms.