Darkness

Image credits: Channel 4

Burner phones, fake identities and harrassment: Ellie Flynn tells Henrietta Taylor what it’s really like to be an undercover reporter

Thirty seconds after sitting in front of Ellie Flynn, I realise that I’d make a terrible undercover journalist. Nestled between BBC Studios and the corporation’s Television Centre, we’re sitting in a buzzing bar-cum-work hub on the ninth foor of White City House, a west London branch of the slick Soho House member’s club. We had previously discussed that I would need to be sneaky – these premises aren’t exactly amenable to any form of recording. But, a little overwhelmed by the loud music, and people tapping away on laptops next to us, I forget my mission entirely. After fussing around with my dictaphone, I plonk it onto the coffee table between us. A moment later, I realise I have in fact placed the dictaphone next to me, not Flynn, and shove it to her side of the table, grimacing. She appears totally unphased.

Flynn’s unfappability is hardly surprising.

In 2018, at the age of 25, Flynn frst appeared onscreen in “Rent for Sex” -- the frst episode of her Ellie Undercover series commissioned by BBC Three, which saw her exposing landlords demanding sex in exchange for free rooms.

Since then, she has led documentaries uncovering a host of injustices affecting people in Britain today. As well as dodgy Botox practices and coercive control, she has investigated the porn industry and the police, revealing the many insidious, unseen ways in which women are abused and exploited.

Her groundbreaking Channel 4 documentary, Undercover: Sexual Harassment –The Truth, came out in December last year, and right now, she’s working on an investigative podcast series about the glamour industry.

While Flynn divulges that the story has been “a long time in the making”, like any good undercover reporter, she keeps the show’s details under wraps.

Growing up, Flynn, in her own words, was “a super nosy child” who “loved reading and writing”. So, when somebody – most likely her mother – told her she’d make a good journalist, she decided on the career path then and there, even though she wasn’t quite sure what it was. Flynn later studied English at undergraduate level, writing for The Tab and working for student radio throughout university. After struggling to get any useful work experience post-graduation, she decided to enrol on City’s Magazine MA.

“That’s where I realised that investigations were my thing,” she says. While many early career journalists may prefer to opt out of scouring endless documents, Flynn was in her element. “I fnd it exciting, going down a rabbit hole and building up evidence.”

In fact, for Flynn, going undercover wasn’t part of any dream to be the next 007. It was just a necessary part of the job. “It felt like the only way I’d get the information I needed, so it was an inevitable part of the reporting process,” she says.

In any case, the reality of the role is a far cry from Bond. “There’s a need to document everything you’re doing, especially when you’re making really serious allegations,” Flynn explains. “So, you have to be really thorough and diligent in terms of your note-taking and your storage of information; which is defnitely not what you think of when you think about getting into it.”

Although secret identities and sleuthing may make for exciting telly, behind the scenes, there are hidden burdens: “On Rent for Sex, I was managing all the correspondence, and I was getting constantly propositioned at all hours of the night and day on this tiny little burner phone that I had,” Flynn says. She tells a similar tale about her experience flming Secrets of the MultiLevel Millionaires: “There was one point where I had like seven burner phones on the go. The admin side of it is quite draining.”

While Flynn’s demeanour may be that of a seasoned pro – albeit a very approachable one – she hasn’t always been as daring. “My friends still can’t believe that I do this as a job, because I was such a wuss when I was younger,” Flynn says in her soft, grounded tone. “When I was at City, going off to do my frst interviews, I’d be embarrassed to call someone on the phone.”

Flynn had been working as a journalist for a few years before reaching her big break on Rent for Sex.

“I was chucked into the deep end,” she admits. “I didn’t even do a screen test and I’d never been on camera before.”

Reality hit during Flynn’s frst practice run with her director. “I just completely froze. I was like, ‘I don’t think I can do this’,” she says. “She was sort of there, head in hands, like ‘Oh my God, this is going to be a disaster!’” repentant. The illusion is shattered when, after apologising and fnally getting up to leave, he hovers at the door and says: “Give me a kiss.”

Of course, it wasn’t a disaster. Armed with little more than a contingency plan, a hidden camera and a chunky, chocolate-brown wig, Flynn adeptly grilled landlords all over the UK about their intentions to sleep with vulnerable female tenants, and spoke to the women who had considered, or endured, such arrangements. But even for someone as passionate about her work as Flynn, there were pitfalls. Chief among them was her disguise. “Oh my god, I hate the wigs!” Flynn says. “The funny thing is, I wore the wig, but no one knew who I was. And back then the wig budget was like £8,” she laughs.

On another ‘drunk’ walk in Leicester Square, two men, who appeared to be working together, pursued Flynn with an alarming air of organisation. Another man grabbed her hand and rubbed it on his crotch. According to Flynn, some form of harassment occurred every night she went out, “which I think is what surprised me; just how prevalent it was,” she says.

While these situations were at the very least unsettling, and at times truly frightening, a lot more of Flynn’s time was spent exploring sexual harassment against women online.

The ability to hit the ground running and stay on task, wigs and all, is likely what makes Flynn so effective in her undercover work, even in the face of real threats. The disturbing results of her recent documentary, Undercover: Sexual Harassment - the Truth, made headlines when she essentially turned herself into a walking target for opportunistic and predatory men, simply by pretending to be drunk and alone.

Flynn, monitored and supported from a distance by her team, took several trips to busy nightlife spots in London and Liverpool and was flmed being approached, harassed and followed by multiple men, even when she repeatedly said that she was fne and looking for her friends.

Flynn had expected as much would happen, but was shocked when things went a step further. “I remember in the back of my mind thinking that there’s no way someone was going to come all the way back to the hotel.” But on Flynn’s frst trip out, one man was so persistent that he did exactly that, following her all the way up to her bedroom, unaware of the hidden cameras watching them and the security guard lying in wait in the bathroom.

Upon their return, Flynn snaps into sober mode to question him, and the man’s bewildered yet persistent response leads the viewer to think, for a moment, he is genuinely

After creating a fake dating profle, posing as an 18-year-old and using her own photos from that age, she matched with multiple men and, with a deeply depressing predictability, was inundated with graphic sexual messages, nude photos, and even videos. Compared to the real risks posed by her trips out at night, Flynn almost makes the experience sound mundane. “A lot of the work was just from home, receiving dick pics on my phone,” she says, a little wearily.

Generally female viewers were disappointed, but unsurprised, by what they saw in the documentary, Flynn explains. Men, on the other hand, were shocked. “[They] were like ‘What? I had no idea this happened!’”

“It’s so frustrating,” she laughs, wryly. “It’s like you’ve been hitting your head against a wall for the past 10 years.” Flynn remains hopeful that the documentary will encourage male viewers to take sexual harassment as seriously as women are forced to.

It’s the necessity of this that forces Flynn to separate her emotions from storytelling. She explains that her role “to give contributors the space to tell whatever story it is they want to tell, and to tell it the way they want to tell it”.

With all that said and done, there’s a clear sense of purpose driving her to keep doing the work that she does. “I want to cut through and get people to realise that this is not just a women’s issue. This isn’t a flm that women need to watch, because we know that this is something that we experience every single day.”