Judge rules that Baby Reindeer was wrong to be billed as a ‘true story’

Fiona Harvey – the inspiration behind Baby Reindeer’s ‘Martha’ – will be allowed to proceed with a defamation lawsuit against Netflix, after a US judge ruled that the drama series was wrongly billed as a “true story”.

Baby Reindeer, which became a sensation when it aired this April and recently won a slate of Emmy awards, is based on creator Richard Gadd’s real-life experience of being stalked by a woman over a number of years, who is fictionalised as ‘Martha Scott’. When fans of the show tracked down the real Martha – Fiona Harvey – she embarked on a media tour, denying that she had ever stalked Gadd and alleging that many of the details on the show were defamatory and untrue. 

It’s a tricky situation. By billing the show as a “true story”, Netflix arguably made a factual claim that the events depicted are accurate, down to the last detail. Even if Harvey did stalk Gadd (and there is ample evidence to suggest this is the case), she could still have a solid case against Netflix if there are disparities between what Baby Reindeer is presenting as fact and what really happened. As Gadd himself has acknowledged, the series was fictionalised and not intended as a “beat-for-beat recounting” of what really happened.

Back in May, Harvey filed a $170m lawsuit, alleging that the show defamed her by depicting her sexually assaulting Gadd, gouging his eyes, and being sent to prison for stalking. She is also accusing Netflix of failing to verify the details of what happened and failing to ensure that her identity was protected – this last claim seems reasonable, considering how easily people were able to track her down.

The judge ruled on Friday that while Harvey’s “purported actions are reprehensible”, Martha’s actions in the show are much worse. “There is a major difference between stalking and being convicted of stalking in a court of law,” he continued. “Likewise, there are major differences between inappropriate touching and sexual assault, as well as between shoving and gouging another’s eyes. While the plaintiff’s purported actions are reprehensible, defendants’ statements are of a worse degree and could produce a different effect in the mind of a viewer.”

Gadd is within his rights to fictionalise his own experiences and arrive at a kind of emotional truth, but it seems like Netflix has failed in its duty of care towards both Gadd himself and Fiona Harvey, who is clearly a vulnerable person regardless of what she’s done. If they’d taken more care to anonymise her, or simply changed the wording to ‘inspired by true events’, maybe this unfortunate mess could have been avoided.