Reckless web sleuths don't understand Baby Reindeer

Armchair detectives are pestering those they believe to be the inspiration behind the stalker drama dominating Netflix. Such behaviour is misguided and wrong, writes Adam White

-  Adam White

Perhaps Richard Gadd was naive? Maybe he didn’t realise Baby  Reindeer, his limited series for Netflix inspired by his own stalking, would cause such a stir. That he could smudge the facts of his traumas just enough to protect the people involved. Perhaps he thought better of us.

The success of Gadd’s series has been startling; strong reviews and word-of-mouth praise have helped it sit at number one on the streamer’s UK and US charts more than two weeks after its release. In recent days, though, the show has careened into its inevitable second act. The armchair detectives have arrived. The seven-episode series concluded with a nine-month prison sentence and a restraining order for Gadd’s stalker, his aspiring stand-up Donny looking on as Martha (Jessica Gunning), the woman who’d terrorised him and his loved ones for four years, was led away in handcuffs, her face wan with guilt. Whether this actually happened has been kept deliberately vague.

Gadd has always declined to speak of the real Martha’s presentday whereabouts, and how her harassment campaign came to an end. While doing press for Baby Reindeer – as well as his earlier one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe about his experiences – he has only ever said that the stalking ended. How is unclear. “I didn’t want to throw someone who was that level of mentally unwell in prison,” Gadd told The Times earlier this month.