Baby Reindeer 'not a true story' US judge rules as Fiona Harvey allowed to sue Netflix for damages

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A judge in the US has ruled that Baby Reindeer is not a true story and that Scots law graduate Fiona Harvey can go ahead with her lawsuit against Netflix.Harvey, 59, filed a defamation lawsuit earlier this year seeking £130 million including punitive damages against the streaming channel.Netflix subsequently stated they would “vigorously defend” Scots comedian Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story and filed a motion with the court in Los Angeles.Judge Robert Gary Klausner, who previously ruled on a copyright case involving Led Zeppelin’s classic song Stairway To Heaven, has thrown out Netflix's call for him to drop the lawsuit.

He has decided that, while Harvey’s “purported actions are reprehensible”, the fictional character Martha’s behaviour was “worse”, and she therefore has a case.The Record first revealed in April that, while Netflix opens the Emmy award-winning series with the words, “This is a true story,” there were differences between the events in the series and in reality, including that Harvey had not been convicted of stalking.In an exclusive interview, Harvey confirmed the Baby Reindeer character was based on her and claimed she was the victim in the story and had never been to prison, unlike the character based on her.

A series of Record interviews with Harvey were followed by her appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored in which she doubled down on her claim that she had never been to prison.

She also denied being in love with Gadd.In his response to Netflix’s motion to drop the case which he has thrown out, Judge Klausner added: “There is a major difference between stalking and being convicted of stalking in a court of law.