Scarlett Moffatt left ‘completely shaken’ after stranger who stalked her online attempts kidnapping in London

Scarlett Moffatt has revealed she was nearly kidnapped when travelling to London, after a stranger stalked her on social media.

The Gogglebox star, 31, from County Durham, broke down in tears on her Instagram story on 31 August as she detailed her close abduction.

She warned her followers about sharing where they are online, while explaining that her posts led the man to intercept her at Kings Cross train station.

Luckily, two train guards spotted the incident and rescued Scarlett before walking her to her hotel.

Scarlett told her 2.2 million followers that she was left “completely shaken.”

She said: “Right, I’m going to do this video, and not for attention or anything like that.

“Firstly I want to say a massive thank you to Neil and Danny who work for LNER, because it isn’t in your job description to walk me all the way to my hotel and I really, really appreciate it…I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Scarlett continued while fighting back tears: “I’m doing this so that people realise the importance of using social media and not always posting where you are.

“I stupidly, naively posted on Instagram saying, ‘off to London on the train,’ and when I got into Kings Cross station there was a guy there.

“I think, because Neil and Danny were there, I stayed calm…but this guy came at me and said ‘Scarlett, I’ve been waiting for you.

“You’re coming home with me,’ and then I said, ‘oh no, thank you’ and walked off.”

Scarlett added that the man continued to follow her outside the station where the train guards saw that something was wrong and came to her rescue.

She wanted to post a picture of the two LNER staff members, but was worried about sharing her hotel’s location.

The television star continued: “I think it’s just hit us how actually scary that was. But I want to say to you, do not post [where you are], you don’t know who’s looking at your stories.

“I am actually going to post this picture tomorrow [the one of Neil and Danny] because I’ve realised that you can probably tell what hotel I’m in by posting it. Oh my word, I’ve never even thought of this before.

“Please, people, be careful what you’re posting.”

Scarlett became a UK household name after appearing on Channel 4’s Gogglebox in 2014 and has since appeared in shows including Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and I’m A Celeb, where she was crowned the Queen of the Jungle.

Before breaking out as a television personality and host, Scarlett was a student disability advisor and is currently working on her first documentary, ‘Britain’s Tourettes Mystery: Scarlett Moffatt Investigates.’

The emotional story comes as social media users were warned of an iPhone setting called ‘precise location’ after a post circulated online last week.

The post said: “Since a new update, people can find your exact location on Instagram and this is being used by individuals to target people to commit crimes including theft, stalking etc. Please make sure your precise location is turned off.”

However, it has come to light that this post has been deemed as misinformation spreading to TikTok and Twitter too.

The official Instagram creators account responded to the claims by suggesting the ‘precise location’ feature has been around since iOS 14 and is only used internally.

They stated: “We don’t share your location with others. Similar to other social media companies, we use precise location for things like location tags or maps features.

“People can manage location services via their device settings, and can tag locations on their posts if they want to share that information.”