Baby Reindeer's Real-Life Martha Speaks Out | This Morning

it's set to become one of Netflix's most popular shows of all time with 54 million views since its debut on April 11th yeah it was inspired by real life stalking experience of its creator and star Richard Gad baby reindeer has sent audiences into a frenzy searching for the real life people that inspired the characters particularly the stalker Martha uh now the alleged real life Martha is revealing her identity For the First Time Fiona Harvey is to set the record straight in an interview with Piers Morgan which will be released later today and she's had a couple of chats with some of the newspapers as well hasn't she but why has the show captured all of our attention of so many people across the world forensic psychiatrist Dr sham Das is here to discuss us now good morning to you morning uh have you watched it absolutely yeah captivated right from the start and what is it then specifically because we've watched it we've had Richard on the show it was fascinating meeting him and talking to him but what is it that caught our attention so implicitly well I think that everybody's fascin ated by stalking itself because we all think that we potentially could be a victim of stalking and a lot of people especially young women have had unwanted sexual attention so I think that's one of the reasons I also think that that the show itself is it really draws you in doesn't it it's atypical so you've got a male victim you've got somebody who's actually accepting responsibility at least for for part of of what happened yes and for me personally I'm I'm one of these guys that you know starts all these Netflix programs but I don't necessarily stick with them but this one had me hooked because it's more than just just what it seems on the surface it's not just about the stalking behavior you go into the backstory of Richard Gad himself or or the the character the version of him in the show and he explains some of his previous experiences some of his abuse so you understand why he did some of what he did well when he came on the show that was one of the things that was so interesting about it and I think why the show has done so well as well is he made all the characters not black and white there were gray areas there were moments where he felt desperately sorry for the character Martha and there were other moments where he felt incredibly frightened it was a real kind of mixture of everything just like real life yeah and it's it's more exciting it's more realistic if if people are you know if they have areas of gray not everything in life is absolutely in real life we're all gray so if you have individuals that are not fully good or not fully bad then it just makes for a more interesting kind of um show I guess yeah one of the things that happened of course when the when the uh show was aired people started to try and put the pieces together to work out who the characters were that Richard is talking about because it's inspired by real life events so the TV producer that sort of assaulted him various other characters and of course Martha the stalker uh and we've now seen that Fiona Harvey has come out who claims to be uh the stalker or the character in the in the program Mar and she I think she's sort of come out and said it wasn't as he's portrayed me and is now doing an interview she's done one with peers which is going to be on his YouTube channel tonight she's done one with the daily record as well in Scotland how do you feel about the fact that she's now having her opportunity to share her side of the story we know that that there has been mental health problems for her in the past is this the right sort of environment for her to be able to do that I do wonder whether she's got a choice it feels like she's already been outed people have already hunted her down on social media so from her perspective it's probably damage control so she wants to put her version of events out so she probably sees things from a very different perspective she might in her own mind think that she had a normal relationship she might think that her dirty laundry is kind of been AED out anyway so I might as well give my side of the story I mean but but within all that there are no parameters and rules surely we should be taking more care of people and their mental health yeah well I suppose it's a balance isn't it because on the one hand you could argue that you want to make this show as accurate as possible yeah want to keep it you know factually authentic but on the other hand you could say that the people who the writers of the show or the platforms have a responsibility to protect all the individuals even if they are the perpetrator so there's a balance of getting those two things right I think as you said doat there was a real Nuance to what how Richard portrayed himself in the series whereby he Absolut there was sort of a mutual dependency at times between him and the stalker there was undoubtedly an attraction some ways he needed the attention at certain points with the gigs when she laughed but he also said I don't want anybody to look for this person he he made that very obvious as well and he was actually concerned about her mental health too but we've talked about this everybody in the we love True Crime we love being super sluth the idea that there is actually somebody that we could put the pieces together and be the detectives to find that person very naive of him to think that people weren't going to do that yeah yeah and I think now more than ever you know we've got the internet at our disposal connect people advertise their lives on social media so it's really easy for any individual to do their own research to dig up some dirts so I think it's a bit naive to assume that that wasn't going to happen um but I'd also say that it can be a force for good you know some sometimes people who try and solve these crimes these armchair detectives they can actually they form like a sense of community and that other Netflix show don't f with cats that was actually the crime was solved because of exactly this of these internet sleuths the the the the stalking mates are sort of exponentially growing at the moment the reports of stalking I I wonder if you can offer any sort of advice cuz there may be people watching this morning who are experiencing unwanted attention and aren't really sure cuz one of the things that Richard certainly found when he initially reported this was it wasn't taken very seriously at all yeah well the first thing i' would say is that if you think that you're in immediate danger then obviously you should be going immediately to the police unfortunately most people fall into a category that's not quite as intense as that but they still feel unnerved and I think in that situation my advice would be to get as much evidence as you possibly can because as in baby reain de unfortunately sometimes the police are not really that interested they don't take it that seriously so what you need to do is build up the evidence you need to be taking screenshots social media chats you need to be taking photos if you think you're being followed so that if and when the police do come to help you can give them the tools that they need and the other thing that i' would suggest and it's maybe a little bit difficult for some people is to tell other people if you feel comfortable right so if you tell your friends and your families and your work colleagues and your neighbors about this individual that's following you making you feel uncomfortable they might be vigilant on your behalf and they might they might you know challenge your potential stalker and this might deter their actions can stalkers be rehabilitated I was just about yeah yeah uh the it's complicated uh complicated question and it kind of depends on the motivation right so if you've got somebody for example that's that's fueled by mental illness then in theory you can rehabilitate that you can treat that with antic psychotic medication for example if it's somebody that was previously in a domestic abusive relationship could challenge their misogynistic views through Rehabilitation but I think I have to make the point that you can't force Rehabilitation onto somebody's they have to have the openness and the insight to actually want to change yeah fascinating stuff isn't it it's going to be interesting to see what happens from here on in I've got a feeling this isn't going to be the end of it no for sure thank you for joining us this morning thank you so

Channel: This Morning

Views: 446,945

Keywords: This Morning, This Morning ITV, Holly Willoughby, Phillip Schofield, Alison Hammond, Dermot O'Leary, ITV, STV, Josie Gibson, Craig Doyle, Rylan, This Morning Funny Moments, This Morning Funniest Moments, This Morning Interviews, Alison Hammond Interviews, baby reindeer, baby reindeer true crime, true crime drama, true story, stalking, stalking advice, baby reindeer martha

Id: aa2BTiSJkgo

Length: 7min 27sec (447 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2024