A couple of days ago, the truth about Fiona Harvey, the inspiration for Baby Reindeer‘s character Martha, finally came out. She is a stalker and severely unwell person, or at least she was many years ago, which gives credibility to Gadd’s indirect accusations against her as well.

An earlier victim, allegedly stalked by her for five years, came forward, producing the court order she had obtained against Harvey for harassment. Barrister Laura Wray had put the matter behind her for 22 years – until said Netflix production, which exploded in popularity, making both Harvey and herself easily identifiable.

This, of course, placed her right back onto Harvey’s list of current preoccupations, which I assume no one, least of all Laura Wray, wants to feature on. On top of this, she has heard thar Harvey was recently looking to buy a house in the vicinity of her home. Whether it proves accurate or not, this lady’s life has been upturned with no warning or consideration.

Imagine being stalked by a severely disturbed person, for five long years, and 22 years later, becoming the focus of their attention once again, so other people could profit from your suffering. If anyone deserves to be compensated, it’s her.

According to Laura Wray, Fiona Harvey first inculcated herself into her legal practice as a trainee, having a law degree but no experience. Her job was to take personal details from people by answering phone calls. Not complicated, right? She was let go after less than a month for repeated aberrant and aggressive behaviour.

Unable to take accountability, Harvey became obsessed with revenge, to the point of reporting Wray to social workers for abusing her disabled child, which is one of the worst things one can do to people on false grounds. She claimed she was attending the same university (Laura Wray was completing some courses, if I remember correctly; she was there for a legitimate reason anyway; Harvey was just… in the building, for no other reason than to stalk her). Harvey later did the same to another legal professional, by reporting him to social workers.

Endangering victims for profit

Laura Wray was used as a prop in the story, with no thought as to the danger and distress she would face by having her ordeal dredged back up and subjected to the scrutiny of an immense audience. She received no request for her input and no warning before the show premiered. In fact, she was only contacted by Netflix about a week ago – they were requesting the court order against Harvey, as the public justifiably demanded answers.

As of two days ago, Laura Wray was receiving threats and toxic online messages from so-called supporters of Harvey; there is apparently a support group now.

There are at least two other victims apart from Gadd, namely Laura and the gentleman she referred to. There are probably more. Does anyone profiting from placing Harvey in the limelight have any concern for these people’s safety? Has her prospective reaction been given any thought at all?

Over the past 22 years, stalking and harassing someone have become far easier. It’s a paradise out there for the Fionas of the planet.

Netflix had not seen any evidence

As the public became aware that crucial issues such as the character based on Fiona Harvey being imprisoned twice for stalking were fictional, there were legitimate questions as to the ethics behind this production. Adding criminal convictions, while claiming it was a true story and making the “character” identifiable in real life, is no small matter.

In a recent enquiry, a Netflix representative in the UK argued that the character had been based on a convicted stalker. No such information can be found about Fiona Harvey.

Laura Wray made it clear that Harvey had never gone to prison for stalking and harassing her, let alone for four years. Richard Gadd also made it clear that the court hearing and sentencing at the end of the show, for Martha’s/ Fiona’s stalking and harassment of himself and his family, were fictional. In fact, we don’t even know whether she ever approached his family at all, or whether this too was added for entertainment purposes. Again, fact and fiction cannot be differentiated in this production, as no clarification was given.

There could be spent convictions in relation to other cases, but since no one can find them, neither could Netflix.

As mentioned, about a week ago, they reached out to Laura Wray, in hopes of obtaining the court order against Harvey (valid, as she said, for a year and one day). This obviously means they hadn’t seen that either while making the show. What have they seen then, in order to refer to her as a convicted stalker? Or did they just take Gadd’s word for it? Could there have been a reference to a conviction in the many communications Gadd allegedly received from her? We don’t know.

Why give someone like Fiona Harvey (of all people) reasons to be aggrieved? She now has legal representation and is apparently suing Netflix. There is, of course, a chance that these lawyers will be unable to reason with her long term, given how difficult she reportedly still is.

Here’s what we do know: Netflix didn’t do their due diligence and made very bold claims, and if this becomes normalised, they could do it to just anybody, guilty of wrongdoing or not, for a profitable story they would then embellish and present as true to the public, creating a social media shit show which potentially distresses and endangers victims, or tarnishes an innocent person, as the case may be. They don’t seem to care.

What could they have done instead?

It’s extremely simple. They had two ethical choices:

  1. A documentary format, presenting a 100% truthful account, reaching out to other victims and leaving out people who did not want to be mentioned;
  2. A completely fictionalised character, while using Harvey’s behaviour (even embellished) and private communications, which would not lead to anyone involved being identified by the public in real life.

They chose the unethical merger of these formats, as it proved more profitable. Profit over people, as it’s usually the case with large companies.

Looks like Gadd was one of the victims of this woman’s derangement – however, he had no regard for her other victims and what would happen to them, should the show explode in popularity, like it did.

So yes, in one word, unethical.