It's been over two years coming, and it's a conclusion I never thought I would ever reach, but thanks to a tremendous amount of help from readers and of course the many, many other victims, we finally got to the bottom of the person behind this ongoing nightmare. We found Sebastian Pritchard-Jones / Harvey Tudur-Jones / Harry Thomas.
And, with the help of Observer Magazine, I went to meet them.
As a bit of background, the Observer got in touch last November, which is why I've not written about Seb since, and for the last 9 months, writer Tom Lamont has had to wrap his brain about the insane web of lies of Seb, to come up with the following piece. It has been well worth the wait, because for me it is closure, closing the door on something that has taken over my life for the last two years, and I can only hope that it goes some way to being closure for the other victims, many of whom have lived with the ghost of Seb for a lot longer.
I just want to thank Tom for the way he handled this whole debacle, his patience with me on our recent visit to Wales, and, of course, for the final piece. I also want to thank the hivemind of 52 First Dates readers who helped me in so many ways with brand new bits of information which helped me reach a conclusion. But most importantly I need to thank all of the other victims for pouring out their hearts to me and bearing with me whilst I waded through this all. We got there in the end. And I could not have done it without each and every one of you. You know who you are. We did it.
I'm very grateful that in two years of working to find the answer to this, that I've not heard horror stories of someone taking their life as a result of this sort of behaviour, as has been the case in some recent tragic examples of cyber-bullying, and I believe that the more people that know about this, the more chance we have of stopping more people getting hurt.
As a bit of background, the Observer got in touch last November, which is why I've not written about Seb since, and for the last 9 months, writer Tom Lamont has had to wrap his brain about the insane web of lies of Seb, to come up with the following piece. It has been well worth the wait, because for me it is closure, closing the door on something that has taken over my life for the last two years, and I can only hope that it goes some way to being closure for the other victims, many of whom have lived with the ghost of Seb for a lot longer.
I just want to thank Tom for the way he handled this whole debacle, his patience with me on our recent visit to Wales, and, of course, for the final piece. I also want to thank the hivemind of 52 First Dates readers who helped me in so many ways with brand new bits of information which helped me reach a conclusion. But most importantly I need to thank all of the other victims for pouring out their hearts to me and bearing with me whilst I waded through this all. We got there in the end. And I could not have done it without each and every one of you. You know who you are. We did it.
I'm very grateful that in two years of working to find the answer to this, that I've not heard horror stories of someone taking their life as a result of this sort of behaviour, as has been the case in some recent tragic examples of cyber-bullying, and I believe that the more people that know about this, the more chance we have of stopping more people getting hurt.
So please share, and see it as a stark warning against some of the emotional fraud that sadly goes on behind online dating sites. These romantic con artists really do exist. And this is one of them...
So here you go, finally, the truth about Sebastian Pritchard-Jones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/07/hoaxer-who-breaks-womens-hearts?CMP=twt_gu
So here you go, finally, the truth about Sebastian Pritchard-Jones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/07/hoaxer-who-breaks-womens-hearts?CMP=twt_gu
