The star of Sweet Bobby who fell victim of one of the most elaborate catfishing schemes ever recorded has claimed her cousin who orchestrated the ploy may have ‘other victims’ within the family.
Kirat Assi, from west London, who was sucked into a fake relationship with a man she met online, joined Shivani Pau on podcast Millennial Mind, to discuss her harrowing experience of being catfished by her own cousin.
The 43-year-old spent nearly a whole decade believing she was communicating online with an eligible cardiologist named Bobby Jandu as their friendship slowly blossomed into romance.
The shocking true story was made into a podcast and later, a Netflix documentary, Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare, which recounted the elaborate deceit she was embroiled in, from the imposter creating some 60 Facebook profiles to keep validating various lies and even proposing to her, to sending her a man’s T-shirt sprayed with aftershave, that she was convinced belonged to her lover.
But in reality, the person was being managed by her female cousin, Simran Bhogal; in whom Kirat had unknowingly been confiding about her relationship troubles.
Seven years on from finding out the truth and receiving a private written apology from Simran, Kirat is still waiting for a public acknowledgment from her cousin of the destruction she caused.
She said: ‘I wanted a public apology, it’s not about money, it’s not about anything else, all I wanted was a public apology, which I didn’t get.
‘A public apology would be her stating what she’d done to me, and that she’d done everything and that would be like, it’s not on me, and how I’ve been so stupid, it’s about her saying what she’d done for public record.’
Sweet Bobby victim Kirat Assi opened up about the emotional impact of the deception and revealed she is still waiting for an apology from her cat fishing cousin
Kirat questioned if Simran worked alone in her deceit because she never got answers during the civil court case as to how she had the time to pretend to be so many people at once.
She said: ‘Sometimes Bobby would be on the phone with me all day, and it’s like how do you believe that could be that person who’s got a job in the city.
‘When the civil case ended I was really upset about not finding out the ‘how’, because I don’t think it’s just for me, I think everybody has a right to know.’
Asked if she thinks anyone else helped Simran, she added: ‘I don’t know, you know she’s obviously been talking to a lot of people as herself or as a fake person, so I don’t know, but I’m not the only victim.
‘To have all those profiles already ready before even the first approach to me means that something’s been going on before even the first approach to me.
‘We know there’s another victim as well, within the family, even closer to her and then there’s a potential other person that’s come forward to say, ‘I think I’m that person’s victim as well’.’
Kirat said growing up Simran, who was in her 20s when she pretended to be Bobby online, was always seen as the ‘typical good girl’ and very studious.
Kirat admitted she was worried that Simran would use information she gathered about her throughout the nine years to ‘spread rumours’ in their community.
The 43-year-old spent nearly a whole decade believing she was communicating online with an eligible cardiologist named Bobby Jandu and their friendship slowly blossomed into romance
In reality, the profile – and others in the fake network of his ‘friends’ – was being managed by Kirat’s female cousin, Simran Bhogal (far right)
Kirat, who was sucked into a fake relationship with a man she met online, joined Shivani Pau (left) on podcast Millennial Mind, to discuss her harrowing experience of being catfished by her own cousin
She said: ‘I was looking over my shoulder over this period, you could understand she suddenly has got loads of data on me.
‘She would have data from my family, she’s been talking to my family, she’s been talking to my friends, at what point when I talk about her is she going to use that to threaten me.
‘It’s like the equivalent of this is revenge porn. In our community it doesn’t have to be porn, it could be any gossip that you spread, that you want to weaponise.
‘You can weaponise anything on the internet, our community loves it. You just have to create doubt, that’s all you have to do and that’s damaging enough.’
Kirat was speaking to Bobby on the phone nearly daily – the conversations at times becoming sexual – but they never met in person due to Bobby’s outlandish excuses.
Whether he had been shot, placed in the Witness Protection Programme or even suffered a brain tumour, Bobby’s claims were always backed up by family members and friends – or so Kirat thought.
The fake Bobby eventually became so obsessive and controlling that Kirat suffered from chest pains and was eventually signed off work due to stress.
After nine years of online communication, Kirat finally tracked down Bobby in person, only to find he had no idea who she was.
Pictured: The real Bobby, whose identity and photos were used to deceive Kirat for nine years on social media
In 2009, Kirat, a prominent member of London’s Sikh community, was working as an arts and events assistant for Hounslow Community Services and presenting a show on Radio Desi, a station for the Punjabi community
As a confused Kirat tried to figure out what was going on, all became clear when the person who had masterminded the catfish scam came clean.
‘Bobby’ along with 60 other fake profiles in his network of ‘friends’ were being managed by Simran.
Previously, Kirat told BBC Asian Network News that she doesn’t know why her cousin decided to catfish her for nearly a decade and has ‘long given up’ looking for answers.
‘The extent to which that person went, you can’t ever justify it,’ she said. ‘I can’t understand why you didn’t stop… what gave you pleasure from hearing somebody in pain.’
Kirat, who is from a Punjabi background, told the BBC that the South Asian community is generally ‘scared to open up about these issues’.
She claimed that her own father ‘doesn’t want to know what happened’ to her.
Kirat said: ‘I love my dad and I know my dad loves me. It’s a different set of values that he has been brought up with.’
The 43-year-old has been left wondering if the catfishing experience would have been different if she came from another background.
After their meeting, both Bobby (pictured, the real Bobby) and Kirat went to the police
In 2009, Kirat, a prominent member of London’s Sikh community, was working as an arts and events assistant for Hounslow Community Services and presenting a show on Radio Desi, a station for the Punjabi community.
She was in a relationship when, out of the blue, she received a Facebook message seemingly from Simran’s ex-boyfriend, JJ, asking for guidance on how to get her back.
The pair struck up a friendship and communicated over the next five months before she heard news that JJ had died, and Simran passed on the email address of his brother ‘Bobby’ to send her condolences.
The fake profile used the real Bobby’s photos and some biographical details without his consent, and in November 2010, Kirat had her first encounter with the fake Facebook profile.
The pair started off developing a friendship and he told her he was married, with a child on the way. But Bobby soon began divulging details of his collapsing relationship.
‘We weren’t close, but I saw him as a friend, a little brother,’ she told the Daily Mail in 2021.
In November 2013, she was at work when she received a Facebook message saying Bobby had been shot and was in a coma, suffering memory loss. Later in January 2014, she learned that he had died.
‘I was invited to join a Facebook group of his friends. There were 39 people in it. I have since learned that none of them was real.’
Soon after, Kirat received an email out of the blue informing her that Bobby was actually alive but faked his own death and was hiding in a witness protection programme.
‘Ridiculous,’ she acknowledged. ‘But at every step, these mad happenings were being backed up by other people.’
She was told ‘Bobby’ was drinking heavily and was suicidal. In 2015, she was informed he had suffer a brain tumour, followed by a stroke.
‘Bobby’ declared his love for Kirat some weeks before they actually ‘got together’ on Valentine’s Day 2015.
‘I was not expecting him to live. His consultant [there were also constant messages from his fake medical team] did not expect him to live beyond July,’ she had said three years ago.
Her feelings about this ‘dying man’ were confused.
‘I am not a mushy sort of person. When he said ‘I love you’, I didn’t know what to make of it, but I did love him… as a friend, then.
‘I also thought ‘Where’s the harm?’ It’s not as if I was ever going to be in a physical relationship with this person. But he kept putting the idea in my head. And everyone else kept saying: ‘Oh, he’s so in love with you’.’
Over the coming years the pair formed a relationship, exchanging several messages daily and their relationship even turned sexual – though Kirat never sent nude images of herself.
By 2017 ‘Bobby’ was becoming controlling including an incident where he forced Kirat to pay for a private mammogram at a London hospital after she experienced chest pains – then flew into a rage when she told him the consultant had been male.
She was signed off her job sick, with stress and eventually was let go.
‘I tried to find another one, but Bobby did not want me to work,’ she had previously explained.
Kirat was desperate to meet Bobby in person, but every time an arrangement was made, something would happen – including once when he supposedly had a heart attack.
Following more and more outlandish claims from ‘Bobby’, Kirat hired a private detective and confronted the ‘real life’ Bobby – a happily married man with children who had no idea that his name was being used to launch a nine-year campaign of deceit.
Kirat, who featured in the hugely popular six-part Sweet Bobby podcast hosted by Alexi Mostrous, has previously spoken candidly about the horror of finding out who was behind the ‘Bobby’s he fell in love with.
She revealed how she ‘vomited’ and ‘passed out’ when Simran eventually confessed to the truth on June 11, 2018.
Kirat said: ‘I opened up to him – her! – telling him things about my hopes, dreams, my childhood, that I’d never tell anyone. I feel violated.’
‘She has taken ten years of my life from me, years I will not get back. In that time I could have met someone real, had a baby. I lost my friends, my job, my savings.’