Richard Gadd in Baby Reindeer© Ed Miller/Netflix

Baby Reindeer lawsuit: Fiona Harvey’s lawyer demands evidence of stalking

Fiona Harvey is suing Netflix for £135 million

TV & Film Editor
June 19, 2024

Baby Reindeer drama is continuing to unfold after Fiona Harvey’s lawyers have reportedly requested the emails that she purportedly sent Richard Gadd back in 2015.

Fiona Harvey, who believes that the character of Martha in the hit Netflix show is based on her, is suing Netflix for £135 million after alleging that key facts in the drama are not true, despite the show claiming that it “is a true story”.

WATCH: How Baby Reindeer became an overnight phenomenon

According to The Sun, the Scottish-born woman’s lawyers have requested the 41,000 emails that Richard claimed Fiona had sent him during his ordeal before he received a restraining order against her. According to Richard, she sent tens of thousands of emails as well as hours of voicemails, dozens of tweets and over 100 pages of letters.

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Piers Morgan with Fiona Harvey

Fiona’s US legal representative Richard Roth spoke to Piers Morgan about the impending lawsuit, explaining why he decided to take the case. He said: “I think there's probably three reasons. Obviously, I'm in the business of making money and I think there's a lot of money to be made here. I think the second reason is that it is really just reprehensible when someone says something's ‘a true story’… And if Netflix is going to say this is a true story, then it better well be true.

Baby Reindeer: Martha's obsession in numbers

© Ed Miller/Netflix

Richard Gadd as Donny Dunn and Jessica Gunning as Martha in Baby Reindeer

Richard Gadd has been vocal about his stalker, named 'Martha' in the show, and just how many messages, voicemails,  tweets and emails he received from her before contact was cut off. It included: 

  • 41,000 emails 
  • 744 tweets
  • 100 pages of letters
  • 350 hours of voicemails 

“And to do that is irresponsible of them. And the third reason is that Fiona Harvey, you've had her on your show, she's been destroyed. She'd been shattered by this. She gets death threats, she doesn't want to leave her apartment.”

© Netflix

Martha the character in Baby Reindeer

He also spoke about reports that Richard didn’t want to bill it as a true story, adding: “It's actually great news for me. I heard about that story this weekend… It's one thing if Richard Gadd says to them,’ It's true, it's true, it’s true’, and they fail to do their due diligence.

© Ed Miller/Netflix

Richard Gadd as Donny Dunn and Jessica Gunning as Martha in Baby Reindeer

“It's even worse if Richard Gadd says, ‘Well, I don't really want this to be a true story’. And Netflix says, ‘No, no, no, no, we want it to be true’... And they say, ‘We don't want to listen to you. We're making it a true story’. I mean, we're going beyond, this is far worse than negligence. This is intentional misconduct, if they actually were told, ‘Don't make it a true story’ and they said it were true.”

Speaking to Piers about the emails, Fiona said: “That’s simply not true. If somebody was sending somebody 41,000 emails or something, they’d be doing how many a day? Lots… None of that’s true. I don’t think I sent him anything… No, I think there may have been a couple of emails exchanging, but that was it. Just jokey banter emails.”

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Richard Gadd behind the scenes on the show

Speaking about her tweets, she added: “I may have done years and years ago… No, it wasn’t numerous. It’s about 18 tweets… There are not 41,000 emails. That’s over a year… I mean how long would that take someone to type up?”

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