A sober anatomy of a viral lie.
Hoaxed follows the spread of the Hampstead hoax from a family dispute into a full-blown internet conspiracy. It is careful, source-heavy reporting about false allegations, damaged families, and the people who kept the story alive.
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Hoaxed is a measured investigative series about the Hampstead hoax, a false story that began with two children’s allegations and grew into a sprawling conspiracy theory. It starts in a police station. From there, the reporting follows the claim outward: to family conflict, online communities, anti-hoax researchers, conspiracy influencers, and people whose lives were altered by accusations that should never have become public spectacle. The series keeps returning to a hard distinction. The story was untrue, but the damage was real. Ella Draper and Abraham Christie are central figures in the account, with the reporting examining their relationship, their time in Morocco, and the circumstances in which the children first made the allegations. Abraham emerges as a disruptive presence, someone who appears repeatedly in the narrative and in the lives of people around him. The show also tracks figures such as Wilfred Wong, whose interest in satanic ritual abuse connected the Hampstead story to older British moral panics and to corridors of institutional respectability. That tension gives Hoaxed much of its force. It is not only about fringe belief. It is about how fringe belief finds platforms, allies, and a vocabulary that can sound righteous while doing harm. The production leans on long interview extracts, courtroom-adjacent detail, archival audio, and reporter-led reconstruction. It is patient. It is also unsettling. Rather than chase twists, Hoaxed builds a record: who said what, who amplified it, who resisted it, and who was left to live with the consequences. The series is especially strong on the human cost of conspiracy thinking, including the way children, parents, teachers, and bystanders can be pulled into a story they did not choose. Its style is literary but controlled, with enough dry irony to mark absurdity without making light of abuse allegations or ruined reputations. For listeners used to overheated true-crime formats, Hoaxed feels notably sober. It asks how a lie becomes a movement, and why correction often arrives too late.
Made for: For listeners drawn to investigative journalism, conspiracy reporting, and morally serious true crime. It suits anyone interested in how false allegations move through families, institutions, and the internet.
What sets it apart: Hoaxed treats a sensational subject with unusual restraint, using long source tape and careful narration rather than shock-driven pacing. Its focus is not the thrill of the hoax, but the machinery that made it believable to some and devastating to others.
Introducing... Hoaxed, the new series from Alexi Mostrous and Tortoise, who brought you Sweet Bobby.In 2014, two children told police a shocking story: that they were being abused by a Satanic cult; a cult headed by their father and by parents and teachers at their school in the wealthy London suburb of Hampstead. The story was a lie. But on the internet, that didn't matter. Hoaxed is an investigation into one of Britain's most serious-ever conspiracy theories. A story about a modern-day Satanic panic; about the victims whose lives were destroyed and about the conspiracists who spread the lie around the...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Hoaxed shows how a false allegation became an organized conspiracy campaign, combining direct confrontation with careful attention to the people harmed.
Hoaxed reconstructs the Hampstead case by tracing how false allegations involving two children moved from police interviews into an online conspiracy campaign.
A custody battle becomes an internet inferno; follow Alexi Mostrous toward the people holding the matches.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A patient investigation that turns one phone call into a wider case about belief, loyalty, and blame.
The episode follows the journalist's call to Abraham Christie months into the investigation, and that one conversation is enough to reopen the central mystery around what happened in Hampstead in 2014.
A careful, bruising chapter about old allegations resurfacing in new and uglier forms.
This episode follows Abraham Christie through older allegations of violence, then brings in a stepchild's testimony and the later Instagram fight over the Moroccan Riyadh, making the pattern feel less like background and more like the point.
A patient look at how conspiracy, credibility, and power can occupy the same room.
Hoaxed lands on the awkward overlap between conspiracy culture and institutional access: child-abuse cover-up claims, satanic ritual abuse, and Wilfred Wong moving between fringe certainty and Westminster.
An interview-led look at the Hampstead allegations that stays anchored in uncertainty.
The episode starts in a police interview room, then opens out into the Hampstead allegations and the family holiday to Morocco where Ella's children first made claims of systematic abuse.
In the final episode of Hoaxed, journalist Alexi Mostrous conducts what he describes as the first recorded confrontation of Abraham Christie by any journalist since 2014, via a cold phone call to Marrakech in which Abraham admits 'I gave them licks with a spoon' before dismissing every allegation against him.
Episode five of Hoaxed (Tortoise) follows journalist Alexi Mostrous and producer Gemma Newby as they travel to Marrakech on a 5am budget flight to locate Abraham Christie, the man who allegedly coached Ella Draper's children to make false abuse allegations in what became known as the Hampstead hoax.
Episode four of Hoaxed (Tortoise, 2022) investigates how the Hampstead hoax achieved 'proximity to respectability' — spreading far beyond internet forums by attaching itself to credible institutions and individuals.
Episode one of Hoaxed (Tortoise, 2022) by journalist Alexi Mostrous investigates the Hampstead conspiracy hoax, which began in Morocco in 2014 when Abraham Christie coached his partner Ella Gariva's children — aged seven and nine — to allege a satanic paedophile ring at their North London primary school.