Fiona Harvey sues Netflix for $255m over Baby Reindeer defamation

Fiona Harvey, the Scottish woman who came forward recently as the so-called “real Martha” portrayed in hit series Baby Reindeer, has filed a $170 million ($A255m) defamation suit against Netflix.

The lawsuit begins with the tag from the series, “This is a true story,” and goes on to say that the onscreen statement is “the biggest lie in television history.”

The complaint continues, “It is a lie told by Netflix and the show’s creator Richard Gadd, out of greed and lust for fame” and that he and the streaming platform sought to “viciously destroy” her life. It further states that Harvey is “an innocent woman” who has been defamed “at a magnitude and scale without precedent.”

Harvey previously told Piers Morgan that, unlike the character, she had never been convicted of a crime or served time.

Netflix is accused of “[doing] literally nothing” to confirm the facts of Gadd’s story and thus committing “a very serious misrepresentation of facts.”

Citing Donny’s behaviour in the series, she also blasts Gadd as a “self-admitted crack, meth and heroin user” who lied to the police about his contact with her.

Harvey says her “life has been ruined” due to Gadd’s “malfeasance and utterly reckless conduct” and that he and Netflix “destroyed her reputation, her character and her life.” The suit goes on to state that “the real Martha is reasonably understood to have done all these monstrous things because Netflix and Gadd stated this was true.”

Gadd is not named as a defendant in Harvey’s lawsuit.

Earlier this week Piers Morgan sat down with UK lawyer Laura Wray, who hired Fiona Harvey as a trainee at her firm. She claims Harvey lasted at the company for two weeks, but stalked and harassed her for around five years.

Source: The Wrap