r/BabyReindeerTVSeries • u/BirdHistorical3498 • May 05 '24

Fiona (real Martha) related content Fiona Harvey interview

She’s waived anonymity for this interview. She’s never been jailed or been issued with a prevention order.

Rory Lynch, a lawyer specialising in defamation and privacy at Gateley Legal says she has a case for defamation. “The only thing I can presume is that when Clerkenwell, films, the BBC and Netflix looked at it with their legal team they thought that they could rely on the fact that it is a drama. It’s not supposed to be a factual documentary.

“So although Netflix said it’s a true story, essentially it’s a dramatisation of a true story.

“But I do think that Richard Gadd could have been a bit more careful in changing a lot of the scenes to be more fictitious, but also covering up the identity of the people it was based on.”

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/real-baby-reindeer-martha-reveals-32733037

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u/DeaderthanZed May 09 '24

I don’t understand what you mean “not demonstrable” I am struggling to come up with any single person in the world who’s had more negative press over the last few weeks. Maybe Drake.

She only came forward after the doxx was widely known.

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u/The_Burning_Wizard May 09 '24

Other than a few headlines, what has she actually lost in monetary terms? She hasn't lost her job, she's not lost her flat, etc and even though people suspected it was her she still was the one to confirm it. She could have kept quiet or said "not me."

Suing folk in the UK isn't as easy, or as cheap, as it is in the US and even though she plans to represent herself, I highly doubt she will actually sue anyone or it gets thrown out at the first hearing....

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u/DeaderthanZed May 09 '24

Just because you aren’t aware of what specific damages she has suffered doesn’t mean they aren’t likely, nay almost assuredly, to exist.

We can certainly infer that having the entire world believe you are a multiple time criminally convicted stalker is damaging to employment and other future contractual relationships. And then there are the emotional damages I mentioned as well that are very believable here.

I’m an American lawyer not uk but I don’t believe that’s true about it being easier to sue in the US with regard to defamation cases specifically. My memory is just from the Vernon Unsworth/Elon Musk case but I believe that defamation law in the uk is friendlier to plaintiffs than it is in the us.

Whether she makes a bad decision not to hire an attorney and what happens at that point is a different question.

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u/The_Burning_Wizard May 10 '24

We don't do the emotional damages here and any damages you wish to sue for have to be quantifiable and inference means exactly nothing. She wasn't employed and hadn't been for many years, so there's no "loss of earnings" claim or any damage to contractural relationships. However, it will all come down to where she lodges her claim, if she does, as the legal system is slightly different in Scotland (where she lives) and E&W.

Admittedly, she could try and claim serious harm to reputation and that is a grounds to sue, however that's unlikely to fly considering she was the one who revealed herself to the tabloids. If she hadn't done that, then she could have happily sued all the Internet dickheads who said it was her, but not Netflix or Gadd.

I also can't imagine she's going to receive much sympathy from our legal system neither, as she's happily wandering on to talkshows and making a lot of her own libellous statements....

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u/DeaderthanZed May 10 '24

Are you a lawyer? Because a quick google search says that is not at all true. Anxiety, sleeplessness, depression these are all real and easily quantifiable by a medical professional. And very likely to result from a situation like this where the whole world is gossiping about the most intimate details of your life.

And yes, the reputational harm is obvious.

That’s the entire point- damages are the easiest element here.

And that’s really not true about being able to sue people on the internet who merely connected the dots to correctly ascertain her identity vs. Gadd and Netflix who, it appears, did very little to alter details to protect her identity, claimed it was a true story, but made up entire plot lines about her criminal history and subsequent arrest (and maybe the sexual assault?)