The identity of the woman who inspired Baby Reindeer‘s Martha Scott, a stalker who terrorises the show’s main character, could have been better protected by the series, lawyers have claimed.
Baby Reindeer follows the harrowing experience of failed comedian and barman Donny Dunn, who decides to bestow an act of kindness on a woman called Martha. That fateful day leads to Martha obsessing over Dunn, and things only get darker from there.
Donny Dunn’s story is based on the real life experiences of Richard Gadd, who wrote and starred in the show. He has been outspoken about the fact that the woman who inspired Martha was also a “victim” with mental health issues who was failed by the system, and has implored audiences not to go looking for her.
His pleas have gone unheard, and it took mere days for armchair detectives to piece together who she is. The real-life Martha has anonymously spoken out through various news publications about the ire she’s received since her identity was discovered, and threatened to sue the show and Gadd for the strife it has brought her. And lawyers reckon she could make a pretty strong case.
In the show, Martha is a Scottish woman in her 40s or 50s with brown curly hair who lives in Camden, north London, and calls herself a lawyer. Despite Gadd’s previous assertions that the show made her “unrecognisable”, Daily Mail Online — which has interviewed the real ‘Martha’ — has said this description is accurate.
Rory Lynch, a lawyer who specialises in defamation and privacy, said Baby Reindeer is “quite high risk” and told the publication that the real Martha may have grounds to sue for defamation, if she could prove the show depicts her unfairly and has caused her “serious harm”.
“You could argue that maybe he should have been a bit more careful about changing facts a bit more,” he said.
“Making her different, maybe doing it the other way around and making it a man as the stalker rather than a woman. Or, you know, just changing it up a bit more as there are obviously so many similarities.”
Lynch said his advice would have been to change as much about Martha’s character as possible while still getting the story across.
“Not Scottish, and not a lawyer and not having a bar in London, but perhaps set it in a library in Manchester or something like that,” he said.
That being said, Lynch conceded that Baby Reindeer‘s legal team must have been “pretty confident” in allowing the show to air as it did, probably because it was “clearly a drama, not a documentary.”
The woman who inspired Martha’s character is yet to officially launch a lawsuit, though she has said she was considering it.
Richard Gadd is yet to comment on her response to the show.
