WAKING at 11pm to banging Megan Brailsford raced downstairs to six gun-wielding police at her door.
It was February 2023 and she had no idea why they were there – until one revealed she’d been reported for murdering her children and burying them in a ditch.
Of course it wasn’t true – Meghan’s two kids were sleeping soundly in their beds, something the police soon realised.
Officers had raced in their police van with their blue lights flashing and alarms sounding to her home because a person purporting to be her had written on Cambridgeshire Police’s live web chat “I’ve killed my kids…I need your help…I’ve buried them on the dog walking trail.”
“I felt sick to my stomach,” the 32-year-old vet nurse from Peterborough, Cambs., told Fabulous in an exclusive interview. “I couldn’t believe someone would do that. Being woken late at night to loud banging was terrifying.”
Then, just weeks later, a similar situation happened when armed cops and paramedics sprinted to her door at 11pm again.
Again someone pretending to be her had contacted them and said “I’ve stabbed a man.”
After that police suggested she open a report into harassment, which she did. But despite this the stalking intensified, leaving Megan – who at one point was receiving silent, private phone calls every four seconds – barely sleeping.
‘I’ve killed my kids…I need your help…I’ve buried them on the dog walking trail’
Eventually in March 2024 the stalker was unmasked as Megan’s ex Daniel Dugdale who she dated from September 2020 to July 2022.
After she broke up with him when he cheated on her he launched a horrific three-month campaign of hidden harassment which included telling her mum, who doesn’t want to be named, and best friend, who also wishes to be unnamed, that she’d died and threatening to kill her beloved Siberian husky dog, Ocean.
He also sent her pictures on Facebook of dead dogs which resembled Ocean and contacted the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons asking for her to be taken off the register.
The ordeal impacted Megan so profoundly she lost 2st and was left feeling emotionally and physically drained. “I was too scared to leave the house,” she says. “I bought panic alarms for myself and the children. It was hell. I told the kids ‘If a stranger ever comes up to you, press this’. I was constantly looking over my shoulder.”
Megan met pub worker Dugdale in town. The pair chatted while her children played. As she went to leave, he asked for her number.
She says: “Before I’d even reached home, he’d texted me. I thought he was a bit eager, but replied and we messaged back and forth.”
Soon after they met again at the same location. Eventually he began visiting her home after work.
Two months on, they became an item with Dugdale moving in. For a year things were good between them.
But in January 2022, Dugdale began staying out late and coming home drunk.
Megan, who is now in a relationship but says she no longer trusts easily, says: “After I’d worked an 11-hour shift, it was the last thing I needed. Then one day I received a message on Facebook from another woman saying she’d slept with Dan.”
Furious, Megan confronted him but he denied it.
She gave him the benefit of the doubt but over the following months, more women messaged. Megan decided to give him a final chance.
Only, his temper began to worsen. And when Megan noticed a Snapchat message from a woman on his phone, she broke things off for one final time.
She thought things were over and vowed not to see him again. But later that week, she started receiving anonymous messages from random accounts on Facebook.
One message read: “I know where you live” whereas another said “you look beautiful today”.
“Others said ‘let me kill you’ and ‘I will run you off the road’ as well as rape and death threats,” says Megan. “I blocked the profiles but other messages came through from different accounts.
'Like a horror film'
The DC investigating Megan's case said stalking had a huge impact on victims. DC Emily Richardson said:
“This case demonstrates the huge impact stalking can have. Dugdale manipulated Megan to try to destroy every aspect of her life, without her knowing it was him, so I am pleased he is in prison.
“This was a traumatic experience for Megan and her family, and I commend her bravery and thank her for supporting the case and raising awareness of how terrifying stalking can be.
“It shows that stalking isn’t a one-off crime and often includes a series of incidents which, when taken in isolation may not seem much, but when put together can be very scary.”
“Then, taxis started turning up to the house in the middle of the night almost every night with drivers claiming I’d booked them. Despite turning them away, they kept coming over the next few weeks.”
Megan then received a message from Dugdale, explaining how the same thing had been happening to him and he was going to call the police, something he didn’t do.
But he did visit taxi ranks and ‘warn’ them about the situation.
“He would go around taxi ranks and tell them about what was happening,” says Megan. “My mum suggested he might be the one doing it to me, but he wasn’t acting like it – I couldn’t imagine he would do that.”
The situation got even more baffling when Facebook messages were sent to her mum and best friend from fake Facebook accounts claiming she’d died.
What to do if you suspect you're being stalked
Tony Neate, CEO of Get Safe Online, tells Sun Online: “The perpetrators commonly obtain details about you via online information of personal and financial affairs, social and work life, relationships and your location.
As a starting point, ensure only the minimum information about you is available online and take stalking seriously.
Report it before it has serious effects on you and others and keep a record of all that takes place so you collate evidence whilst it is happening.
For expert advice visit Get Safe Online.”
“My best friend called sobbing, ‘Are you alive?’, explaining someone had messaged her saying I’d died. It was getting too much. The stalker was ruining my entire life.”
By this point she was receiving anonymous phone and Facebook messages every four seconds.
She says: “I wondered how he had my number, but didn’t want to change it – it belonged to me. But by this point my mental health was spiralling. I barely slept and was losing so much weight. My mum had even started receiving strange calls.”
Not remorseful… just blank
Determined to find out who was responsible, Megan made multiple statements to the police and handed her phone in for analysis.
Then, not long afterwards, an officer called Megan. She says: “They told me it was Dan behind it all. I couldn’t believe it, and broke down in tears. I was furious.”
It emerged cops had linked evidence on Megan’s phone records to Dugdale’s phone records.
Dugdale, 32, from Cambs., appeared at Cambridge Crown Court in April last year where he pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking involving serious alarm or distress and one of perverting the course of justice.
He was sentenced to three years and nine months and handed a lifetime stalking prevention order.
“I went to court for sentencing and looked at him but he didn’t look at me or my family once,” she says. “He didn’t look remorseful, just blank. For months Dan made my life hell. To discover it was him all along makes my blood boil.
“I hope now that I’m rid of him for good, I can finally move on. I’ve been left traumatised and was forced to move house and change my workplace. Had he not been caught, at the rate it was all escalating, I think it would’ve got a lot worse.
“I’m so angry about what he did – all because I broke up with him. I’ve been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I didn’t think he was clever enough to do something like this, but he’s actually a really clever man.”
