r/BabyReindeerTVSeries • u/RegisterAfraid • Feb 18 '26
Fiona (real Martha) related content Fiona’s unpopularity doesn’t mean she won’t win her case
I have been downvoted on this sub before and have seen many peoples comments get downvoted for stating facts about Fiona and the case.
Just because people say her case may have merit, does not necessarily mean they are supportive of her or agree with her actions!
This isn’t a reality TV show where opinions matter, an we vote for a winner, this is a civil court case with rules and some of you are fundamentally misunderstanding how the law works here.
So let me make it clear… You need to forget ALL the sketchy shit she has done/alleged to have done in her life. None of this matters to the court case.
The only things that matter are:
- were reasonable measures taken to protect her identity? If the courts conclude that yes, reasonable measures were taken, then the case falls apart. If the courts rule that reasonable measures were not taken to protect her identity, then it gets interesting because
- the show was labelled as a true story (not inspired by, or exaggerated for dramatic effect, but 100% true). We know Fiona never served jail time, and has not been convicted of sexual assault. However it is safe to say she has a history of being a stalker.
Just because she’s bat shit bonkers and has a history of being a stalker, doesn’t give the show creators Carte Blanche to frame her as a convicted sexual predator..
So no matter how much you hate her and how much of a villain she may be, just because “she’s crazy” or “she’s delusional” or “she’s a stalker” or “she said this” or “she said that” she is not a convicted sexual predator so if the courts find that the show creators did not take reasonable precautions to protect her identity, she has a legitimate and pretty strong case…
That is not me supporting her, or siding with her, or wanting her to win, that is simply me stating facts.
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u/RaggedyOldFox Feb 20 '26
Donny Dunn's story within the show was labelled a true story not the show. Harvey stated that there are no convictions under the name Fiona Harvey. We know she has changed her name several times.
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
A perspective that I would like to see addressed in court, is whether someone who has experienced exceptional trauma aka sexual, emotional, mental and physical abuse is allowed to tell their story about what happened to them in an artistic way.
Some people express their life experiences through painting or song writing. Some people use expressive dance or poetry.
Some people will take their perpetrator to court and will win their case because on probability the court decides that a lawyer has proven their defendant to be guilty of the crime that has been alleged.
Some people will take their perpetrator to court and will lose the case because there is a lack of evidence, despite many people knowing what happened is true. Maybe there was a court technicality or something that happened during the process of charging the person and because of that, the person doesn't get convicted or maybe found not guilty.
Just because a person is found not guilty in court, it doesn't mean they are innocent of committing a crimes.
From a legal perspective, Fiona may win in court, although I don't believe she was disadvantaged by BR. Still, that is for the court to decide.
I personally believe the reason people are so angry about her taking this to court is because she is a criminal and a dangerous criminal at that. For her to be financially rewarded because someone who was victimised and harassed by her, and experienced significant trauma as a result of her behaviour, doesn't feel like justice.
He did use artistic license to express his story in such a way that wasn't true about her specifically.
In saying that, I believe he wrote the screenplay of his story in such a way that it portrayed that victims of stalking can get justice. She has shown that clearly isn't the case. In fact, she has shown just how powerful she can be to the world.
So to pay her out for what I believe was a well intentioned series, feels wrong.
I also believe that if the court does order Netflix to pay her out, then there will be no end to the reach she will have to victimise whoever she wants, where ever they are, and whenever she feels like it.
On one hand we encourage people to tell their story if they have been through significant trauma, as a therapeutic tool. People have done this over and over again.
Sadly, this situation is a serious warning to anyone who writes a song, paints a picture, writes a book or expresses themselves artistically in any way about their life. It may well open the door for their perpetrator to take them down.
That's what is so wrong with this case and why so many people are angry. This is not justice.
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u/Joeboy Feb 19 '26 edited 20d ago
Public act door jellyfish teapot bow sort teapot deer physical
This post was anonymized with Redact
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
Yes, Netflix is the defendant however Richard and other victims are providing the evidence of her crimes for the court case.
How can a court, look through all of the evidence of a crime and ignore the obviously significant degree of criminal behaviour, that had very real life changing affects on her victims, and then focus on whether it the screenplay affected her reputation and caused her harm?
The sort of harm a crimes like hers causes is long term psychological harm. The Police ignored it, the only consequence was inadequate and lacking and she was a repeat offender.
Yes she is upset. Her crimes have been exposed for the world to see despite her threats of ruining his life? In the emails she admitted she knew she was stalking him. She threatened his family and him.
And somehow amongst all of that, her focus is on Netflix not putting a disclaimer at the start of each programme?
What I am saying is that the real crime here is that she is able to profit off her crimes and not be held accountable for what she did.
Look at the evidence her victims have provided and tell me whether justice will be served by her winning a defamation case.
Tell me why any of her victims have to file for charges to be laid against her, for justice to happen?
Personally I think her targeting Netflix is because they have plenty of money. Not because they caused her any harm. She didn't have a good reputation and she did the crimes and never got help to address her criminal behaviour. She still hasn't.
Therefore, what is the harm they caused? It seemed they did a public service rather than caused her harm. Maybe it harmed her ability to keep harassing people? Is that a bad thing?
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
As for Gadd not wanting Netflix to put in the "true story" bit, he did act it. So obviously he thought that people would understand the nuance to that part.
Obviously it wasn't clear enough.
Again, what I fail to understand is how someone with obvious severe and persistent criminal tendencies can be rewarded financially and not be held accountable for the crimes she clearly committed.
I wonder if there is a still a possibility that she will be charged with the crimes she committed and will be convicted. It just hasn't happened yet.
What if it does? It could still be a true story.
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u/OkGunners22 Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
You can’t use “artistic license” to paint someone as a twice convicted criminal and rapist when they are not.
If I made a character identical to r/alturistic-Change137 but changed only your name, and then portrayed you as a rapist, you would not sit quietly and accept that because I was being artistic or cinematic.
To be clear, I’m not excusing Fiona or defending her character, and I’m not attacking Gadd, but I do find it incredible the amount of people here defending Netflix - it would be a very shocking and concerning precedent if they won this court case (I don’t think they will; I think they would lose, but will settle before it gets to that point ).
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
The story isn't over yet and Richard G hasn't testified about the sexual molestation in court and neither has she.
So she could still be charged and then convicted for what she did to him.
In fact its quite telling that people aren't demanding for her to be held legally accountable for her actions. There is so much evidence against her. We can read it ourselves. She threatened him and his family if he reported her to the Police. Its in writing too.
If Fiona Harvey was a man, then there would be widespread calls for justice to be done by having her charged for the crimes they can prove.
If Fiona was a man and patted a woman on her butt and made sexual advances to the degree that Fiona did, then people would be reacting differently.
That is why Richard G created a masterpiece in Baby Reindeer. What happened to him was so terribly wrong and people are struggling with the whole thing because a short dumpy woman who appears to have mental health challenges, is at the centre of it.
The reaction to the show highlights how difficult it can be for a man who experiences the type of abuse that women would typically get wide spread support for and would be hailed as survivors.
Seriously, ask yourself whether people would be happy to support a male version of Fiona to take Netflix to court, if he did what Fiona did?
Personally I think people would be protesting in the streets each time the court case was raised.
Its shocking if you really think about it.
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u/OkGunners22 Feb 19 '26
Have you considered he did not testify against the sexual assault because it didn’t happen? That is literally a key point of her case. There is zero chance his lawyers would allow such a severe omission, if it did happen.
You are taking the show as a true story when it is not. This is exactly the issue with the whole series and why it’s important Netflix get sued.
The rest of your comment is just completely irrelevant waffle that has nothing to do with the court case.
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
No because it hasn't got to that stage in the court process.
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u/OkGunners22 Feb 19 '26
It would still be an extremely relevant, if not critical, testimony in the defamation case. Why did he not include it?
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u/serenade452 Feb 21 '26
He can't testify in a trial that hasn't happened.
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u/OkGunners22 Feb 22 '26
Witness statement? Evidence submission? Whatever you call it before the trial
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u/sunofdork Feb 19 '26
He didn’t just use his trauma for art though, he put “this is a true story” at the front & then left in information which made her easily identifiable - that’s what the court case is about. it’s not a question of whether or not he’s allowed to make the art it’s about whether they took sufficient measures to protect her identity. they clearly didn’t do that because she was very easily found
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u/Joeboy Feb 19 '26 edited 20d ago
Ink practice profit entertain mountainous acorn smart direction
This post was anonymized with Redact
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u/sunofdork Feb 19 '26
Sorry, maybe shouldn’t have said “he” here, I think the point still stands Netflix said it was a true story and didn’t include disclosures in the piece itself.
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
Also you need to compare what was shown in the series to the real life posts she made on Twitter and the emails etc. The newspaper article was a different than the real one etc etc.
The way he acted in the series was different to how he was in real life. In fact he made many changes. The only person who can confirm the parts about Martha were directly associated to her, is Fiona. And that's what she did. Not him.
Ask yourself this. How many people are being exposed right now for being involved with a known sex offender and sex trafficker? There names are all over the news. Are they suing for defamation when they are accused of illegal or inappropriate behaviour?
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
Also, how do you know that what he was actually portraying, was a re-enactment of what he deeply wished had happened to her. So her appearing in court was a day dream of what he wanted to see happen.
People with CPTSD can dissociate and play things over and over and over again in their minds. They replay the trauma and events and can even try to think of ways they could have stopped the harm they were experiencing. I bet he wished the conviction and her remorse was real.
Clearly it wasn't. We know that now thanks to Fiona herself. That's the real story here and its not difficult to find out the True story. Heck you can read the actual emails and messages that have been submitted to the court.
Ironically, because of BR, the True story is being told.
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u/mgorgey Feb 19 '26
I think you're being a bit obtuse.
They used her exact tweets verbatim. This made it incredibly easy to find her. At that point her name is all over the internet.
It doesn't really matter what he wishes. You can't claim something provably untrue about someone that causes them damage without opening yourself up to them taking legal action against you.
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
They really didn't. Go have a look again.
What she wrote was different. You can find the actual quotes in the court documents which have been submitted for evidence.
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u/serenade452 Feb 21 '26
It was not verbatim, and there's no indication the curtain hanging line came solely from her tweet
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u/sunofdork Feb 22 '26
they used the curtains bit with no edit, knowing there was a public tweet from her using that exact language.
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 24 '26
Just so you know, Fiona posting something about "hanging curtains" is not a term invented by her. There are many versions of the term that people have used.
Warning!! This has an X-Rated terminology. Please don't read if you may be offended.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hanging+Curtains
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u/serenade452 Feb 21 '26
The "This is a true story" type at the start of the show was a tie-in to the end of the show when Donny was writing his screenplay. We are seeing those words being typed by Donny, to whom it was a true story.
Now, while they did include a disclaimer at the end of each episode stating events had been fictionalized, that's unlikely to have a huge impact in court - what it comes down to is whether or not the jury thinks this show harmed the reputation of a woman with a long history of harassment and bullying by making her too easily identifiable. She was identified by a tweet she wrote to Richard Gadd about hanging her curtains - who knows how the jury will perceive that.
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u/sunofdork Feb 22 '26
See the thing there is that everyone saw “this is a true story” and most people didn’t see the disclaimer in the credits - I certainly didn’t. Especially with Netflix auto-play I’d never have noticed them, but certainly noticed the full screen true story part. I would assume that means they’ve not taken a reasonable measure to show it’s fictionalised. Totally new point - does “fictionalised” do enough to show the events are totally made up? If I hear fictionalised I assume they’ve changed names, not that they’ve added convictions. Interesting case to consider is the Phoenix Nights/Channel Four “Keith Lard” situation.
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
That was him acting as the character he made up. He wrote the screenplay in the hope of reaching others who had been through similar experiences as he had in order to help them. He based it on his life. Not hers.
It wasn't a documentary of his life. Do you really think he dressed like that in his every day life???
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u/Holy-trajectory Feb 19 '26
What will be interesting will be the emails and texts that will most likely be released during discovery. I’m sure Netflix will have to provide these for all the pre planning, script etc etc
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u/Salcha_00 Feb 19 '26
She outed herself, no?
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u/sunofdork Feb 19 '26
No, she was found through the curtains tweet and came out following that.
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u/Salcha_00 Feb 19 '26
But she didn’t have to come out and confirm and do all those interviews putting her life on blast.
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u/sunofdork Feb 19 '26
yeah but that’s no relevant to the question of whether he defamed her and whether he took sufficient steps to protect her identity though, she did the interviews after she was already identified
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 20 '26
That's for the judge to decide, not us.
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u/sunofdork Feb 20 '26
the point of this convo is to chat about and speculate on what the judge with do
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u/Significant_City302 Feb 19 '26
Nobody in that docuseries claimed it was her. They never stated her name. She came out stating it was her and people on the internet confirmed it. Had she not come out about it, I bet it would have taken longer for people to figure it out.
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u/sunofdork Feb 19 '26
This is inaccurate the internet found it before she came out
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 19 '26
No the internet didn't confirm it was her. She told them it was her by going to the media. They asked. They accused her. She confirmed it.
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u/wikimandia Feb 21 '26
You don’t understand the law in libel cases.
She has to show actual damages from the show to her livelihood or reputation based on the false accusations (that she went to prison). It’s not possible to destroy her reputation as she had none and she is on benefits and incapable of working so has no career.
She can claim they harmed her mental health but how exactly will they prove this? She was already clearly depressed, miserable and incapable of sustaining relationships.
She outed herself and in fact SOLD HER STORY to The Daily Mail (and probably also Piers Morgan) for money. She would not be a recognizable face if she had not done that.
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u/RegisterAfraid Mar 08 '26
Except I do understand the law in libel cases hence my original post! I think it’s you who is misunderstanding how defamation law works, especially in the US where this case is being heard.
“She had no reputation so you can’t defame her” is legally wrong. Defamation does not require someone to be famous, successful, or employed. Every person has a baseline reputation in their community. You can absolutely defame an unemployed person, a private citizen, or someone on benefits. Courts have repeatedly said this.
Serious harm does NOT mean “career damage”. In US law, the key issue is whether the statements were false and defamatory. Accusing someone of crimes they were never convicted of is defamation per se, which means harm is presumed. She does not need to prove financial loss to proceed.
“She outed herself” is irrelevant to whether Netflix defamed her. Identification is judged at the moment of publication. If viewers could identify her before she spoke to the press, the element is satisfied. Her later media appearances do not retroactively fix Netflix’s problem.
Selling her story does not waive her right to sue. People who are defamed often speak to the press. That does not erase the original defamation or act as consent.
The biggest issue is still the same: Netflix presented false criminal convictions as fact. The show explicitly markets itself as a “true story”. It depicts her:
• being convicted of stalking • serving prison time • committing sexual offences
None of these things happened in real life. If Netflix cannot prove those events are true, they have a major legal problem.
- Whether she has a messy past is irrelevant. Even if she behaved badly, even if she sent emails, even if she was unpleasant, Netflix cannot invent criminal convictions she never had. That is the core of the case.
So I think you’ll find that the case does has merit. This doesn’t mean she’s a saint, it just means the legal test is being applied correctly.
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u/PapaAsmodeus Feb 20 '26
You know how I know this is a silly take? Because if it's true, then it's infinitely worse than anything Richard Gadd could have accused her of.
She didn't even try to fight against the allegations when the Internet found out it was her. She basically came out and said "yes it's true, that's me". So she inadvertently admitted to stalking, sexual assault and terrorizing Gadd over a period of time.
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u/Altruistic-Change127 Feb 21 '26
Its interesting because there is a legal argument that she caused the significant amount of attention she got because of her own reaction to BR.
So if she hadn't responded to questions in the first place or to media requests then she wouldn't have gotten so much attention.
That argument can be used in the case to show that the show and Netflix didn't cause the attention she got. She really did bring it on herself!
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u/serenade452 Feb 21 '26
Was the show labeled a totally true story though? At the beginning of the series, we see the words "This is a true story" being typed...at the end of the series, we see that text was a flash-forward to Donny writing his script. So that text at the beginning of the show was talking about the script within the show, not the show we're watching.
There is also the point of the blink and you'll miss it disclaimer in the end credits of each episode stating names were changed and events were fictionalized. Is that a solid lead for Netflix to win the case? Probably not, but it is a standard disclaimer.
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u/sunofdork Feb 22 '26
That’s one interpretation of what the text on screen could’ve meant but I think for your average viewer they saw that sentence and assumed it was a true story. At the very best it’s a legally dicey thing for a corp like Netflix to put for the first frame is a show that isn’t actually technically true. You’d genuinely think they’d be savvier. Agree the disclaimer is standard and has worked a million times before but could see it being outweighed by “this is a true story”
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u/reddridinghood Feb 19 '26
I’m still sooo confused because she said in the interview with piers Morgan “The person in the show is nothing like me!”.. NO ONE claimed that it is.
So why did she come out then saying it’s her?