'High risk' Baby Reindeer gets 'very close to the line': Legal experts say ... trends now
Legal experts have claimed Netflix smash Baby Reindeer is 'high risk' for lawsuits and more could have been done to protect the identities of real life people portrayed in the show.
Lawyers exclusively told MailOnline that the streaming giant and show creator Richard Gadd should have changed more key details to stop 'arm chair detectives' trying to hunt out the real-life people based on the show's characters.
The seven-part Netflix-series is billed as a 'captivating true story' based on Richard Gadd's experience of being stalked by a random stranger he offered a cup of tea and abused by a high-profile comedy agent some years earlier.
In the show, Mr Gadd's stalker is revealed as a Scottish woman in her 40s called Martha Scott living in Camden, north London - all of which are seemingly accurate to the woman accused of being the real stalker.
Rory Lynch, a lawyer specialising in defamation and privacy at Gateley Legal, said that identifying details like this not being changed, and the apparent use of real text messages sent to Mr Gadd from his stalker could lead to 'jigsaw identification'.
Mr Lynch said the real 'Martha' may have grounds to sue for defamation if she could prove allegations made in the show are untrue and have caused her 'serious harm', such as being harassed online.
Baby Reindeer delves into Richard's harrowing real-life stalking ordeal and brutal sexual abuse as he plays a fictionalised version of himself called Donny Dunn (pictured)
Gunning plays Martha in Baby Reindeer, the fictionalised version of Richard Gadd's real-life stalker
Richard Gadd, 34, said the show is based on real-life events, including being raped by a TV executive. Pictured: Tom Goodman-Hill as Darrien O'Connor in the show
He told MailOnline: 'I think what Gadd's done is quite high risk because he's publicised the fact that this happened to him, and it was traumatic and now he's taken it to the big screen.
'You could argue that maybe he should have been a bit more careful about changing facts a bit more.
'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.'
This could be put forward as an argument for the show not protecting her real identity in a defamation case, he claimed.
Mr Lynch continued: 'I would just try and make it as different as you can to what actually happened 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 added that there could also be a privacy issue regarding scenes that show Gadd's stalker.
But he said that Mr Gadd's legal team would have likely been 'pretty confident' in clearing the show legally as it is 'clearly a drama, not a documentary'.
Baby Reindeer, produced by Clerkenwell Films, which was acquired by BBC Studios in 2021, has become a global phenomenon since it aired earlier this month.
In the show Gadd plays a fictionalised version of himself - a fledgling comedian called Donny Dunn - who is stalked by Martha, a woman he met while working in a pub in Camden.
During the course of Mr Gadd's disturbing three-year ordeal, he is sent more than 40,000 emails, 350 hours of voicemail, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of letters.
Netflix later confirmed that
