The real-life 'Martha' from Baby Reindeer is now 的ing ME: I've had a four-day 一斉射撃,(質問などの)連発/ダム of 非,不,無-stop calls and terrifying messages just like on the Netflix show, 令状s NEIL SEARS. As I type, the phone is (犯罪の)一味ing again...
The most 最近の voicemail message was the most 冷気/寒がらせるing. 'You have made a bitter enemy of me,' she said. 'You are the c*** from hell.'
Those words, 配達するd in her 独特の Scottish accent, gave me a glimpse of how she had - 恐らく - terrified her 犠牲者s.
For this was the real-life 'Martha', the woman portrayed as a sick serial stalker in the 攻撃する,衝突する Netflix television show Baby Reindeer, speaking to my answerphone last 週末, the culmination of a four-day 一斉射撃,(質問などの)連発/ダム of calls and voicemails.
It was followed by a 警告 never to approach her again, couched in legalese which the former 法律 student 選ぶd up in the course of the 合法的な training she 誇るs of.
On social マスコミ, she went on to 公然と非難する me as a fat liar, an 'overgrown bipolar schoolboy' and said she was considering 非難する £3,000 an hour for the time she spent talking to me, which she (人命などを)奪う,主張するd was her professional 予定.
To be (疑いを)晴らす, I feel it was perfectly 合法的 for 'Martha' to call me. I had met and interviewed her for three and a half hours for an article in the Daily Mail published last Saturday.
Neil Sears met the real-life Martha at her new, one-bedroom 会議 flat in a central London high rise last week
In Baby Reindeer Jessica Gunning plays 罪人/有罪を宣告するd stalker Martha, who makes the life of Richard Gadd's character Donny a 悲惨
But in 30 years of journalism ? 含むing the occasion when comedian-turned-共謀 理論家 Russell Brand took o ffence at what I'd written about him and turned his eight million fans on me - I have never 遭遇(する)d such a 津波 of calls.
Let me explain. The Netflix series Baby Reindeer has 発射 to No1 for the streamer in 30 countries, 含むing the UK and the US. It is written by Richard Gadd who also plays the central character, Donny, and is 恐らく based on his real-life experience as a struggling stand-up comic working in a pub in London's Camden, who 申し込む/申し出s a 解放する/自由な cup of tea to a 顧客 called Martha. Oddly, にもかかわらず (人命などを)奪う,主張するing to be a high-飛行機で行くing lawyer, she can't afford to buy herself a drink.
In the series the character turns out to be a 罪人/有罪を宣告するd stalker who goes on to make Donny's life a 悲惨, haunting his 演説(する)/住所, 混乱に陥れる/中断させるing his stand-up shows, at one point 粉砕するing a glass in his 直面する, at another attacking his trans girlfriend, and (人命などを)奪う,主張するing his father is a paedophile. 最終的に, she is 刑務所,拘置所d.?
テレビ視聴者s are told the 演劇 is based on a 'true story', and Gadd has made it (疑いを)晴らす in interviews that while 詳細(に述べる)s have been changed - the real stalker was never 拘留するd, for instance - the character Martha is based on the woman who sent him 41,071 emails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages, letters totalling 106 pages, and left 350 hours' 価値(がある) of phone messages.
Gadd's character 作品 in a 妨げる/法廷,弁護士業 in the show and Martha haunts him, at one point 粉砕するing a glass in his 直面する and attacking his trans girlfriend
In the show Martha even (人命などを)奪う,主張するs that Donny's father is a paedophile. 最終的に, she is 刑務所,拘置所d
The 人気 of the series 始める,決める off an army of 決定するd inte rnet sleuths who, before long, had identified Martha as a 58-year-old Scottish woman - who the Mail has chosen not to 指名する - living in London. The 記録,記録的な/記録する of tweets she 地位,任命するd a 10年間 ago, coupled with an (裁判所の)禁止(強制)命令 against her for stalking a Scottish MP's family more than 20 years ago, certainly seemed damning - and, after she agreed to talk to me, the several hours I spent with her left no 疑問 in my mind.
Indeed, she herself agreed she must be the inspiration for Martha - although she 否定するd any 悪事を働くこと, or that any (裁判所の)禁止(強制)命令s had been taken out, and 持続するd that Gadd was 効果的に stalking HER by 利益(をあげる)ing from his show, after she had 'turned him 負かす/撃墜する'.
I met the real-life Martha at her new, one-bedroom 会議 flat in a central London high-rise last week. A short, solid woman - she told me she had put on 負わせる during lockdown, like many of us - with brown shoulder-length hair, she sat surrounded by boxes of 所有/入手s.
Perhaps as a result of failings by the 会議-契約d 除去 会社/堅い ? which she had plenty to say about ? her only furniture appeared to be one dining 議長,司会を務める, a 激しく揺するing 議長,司会を務める and a small (米)棚上げする/(英)提議する.
She explained she had moved to the flat the day before and apologised for her attire - jogging trousers - 説 she had yet to unpack her 着せる/賦与するs.
While we chatted, she let slip that she has a 週刊誌 food 予算 of £30 and this, taken with her surroundings, seemed rather at 半端物s with her repeated 誇るs that she was both a 最高の,を越す lawyer and talented singer.
'I'm not practising just now, but I'm 開始する,打ち上げるing my own 法律 会社/堅い soon, in London's Abbey Road, to 代表する only musicians,' she told me. 'We had staff all lined up but it was 延期するd by the pandemic.'
Later she told me that she was trying to 記録,記録的な/記録する an album herself. 'It's like Susan Boyle stuff.'
During the course of the interview, she told me several times that she had 'turned Gadd 負かす/撃墜する' because she 'had a boyfriend'. She talked of her 'long-time partner' who she (人命などを)奪う,主張するd was a 'QC' and 示唆するd she was in an 現在進行中の 関係.?
(When I spoke to her former 隣人s at the Camden 会議 flat she'd just left after living there for around a 10年間, they believed her to be 失業した. They were 懐疑的な about the 存在 of a boyfriend.)
'Martha' happily 提起する/ポーズをとるd for the Mail photographer - even sitting at a bus stop in the way as Martha does in Baby Reindeer while stalking Donny - although we have decided not to publish them.
It was some three hours into our 遭遇(する) that she began speaking 率直に about Richard Gadd. 最初, she (人命などを)奪う,主張するd she had only 'met him once' but by the end of the 雑談(する), it was 'maybe four times'.
She levelled all manner of 批評s at him, (人命などを)奪う,主張する ing her 'photographic memory' gave her a 詳細(に述べる)d 解任する of his behaviour.
It was 9.30pm when I left 'Martha', telling her that we would publish the article in the coming days.
I was fully 推定する/予想するing to hear from her. I gave her my number because it is perfectly 理解できる that an interviewee would wish to 接触する the 新聞記者/雑誌記者 who would be telling her story to the world, perhaps with 付加 thoughts and 観察s or to 訂正する some facts.
But not within ten minutes of my 出発. That's when the calls had begun. She called three times during my short 運動 home, all of which I answered and which lasted in total 19 minutes.
The next day there were ten calls, the one after that 14, and the day afterwards 24 ? all of them from a No 報知係 ID number on 審査する.
And when I failed to answer - as, I have to 収容する/認める I began to do as that 'No 報知係 ID' message kept popping up - there were the rambling stream-of-consciousness messages - just like the ones the fictional Martha leaves in the TV show.
Donny, like Richard Gadd in real life, even tries his 手渡す at stand-up comedy, although he is not a 広大な/多数の/重要な success< /p>
Five messages totalling ten mi nutes on the first 十分な day, nine totalling 20 minutes on the second, 16 totalling 53 minutes on the third.
These messages were not attacks on me, but on Richard Gadd, other staff who'd worked at the Camden pub, on Scottish MPs and their families.
Then on the Saturday there were 19 calls - and, as I 試みる/企てるd to communicate with her by email instead, 18 発言する/表明する messages were left, totalling 40 minutes.
The most abusive message (機の)カム after she had belatedly read the story published in the Mail that I had worked on with feature writer Barbara Davies.
As I said, it did not 指名する the real-life 'Martha' but it laid out the historic stalking 主張s against her in Scotland. But in her 見解(をとる) it gave too little space to her 否定s of those 主張s.
This time the message I received was intensely personal.
'I will call the police if you ever approach me,' she said. 'I am 告訴するing you and that newspaper, and the bimbo who wrote the article with you.
'I hope that's (疑いを)晴らす even to a moron like you, and I will be 需要・要求するing the newspaper 解雇(する) you. I don't like you, I've never liked you.'
Then (機の)カム the 乱用 抑えるのをやめるd on her Facebook page ? looked at by ever-growing thousands of Baby Reindeer fans.
She told them I was 'fat and ugly', 'not very 有望な', a 'nutter', 'sick', 'a total c***' who 'wouldn't get off my phone', and 誤って (人命などを)奪う,主張するd that I had 乱用d other 新聞記者/雑誌記者s and 'hated' Gadd.
The 多重の postings went on 井戸/弁護士席 into the night, and over several days.
In person she had told me in 注目する,もくろむ-popping 詳細(に述べる) - and out of the blue - of a one-night stand 'with a barrister'. When we subsequently talked on the phone, she suddenly (人命などを)奪う,主張するd her QC partner 'had died' - before then 説 that she lived with her 'boyfriend'.
While I had never raised her 関係s for discussion, soon she was ranting on Facebook: 'I resent that 少しの creep neil at the daily fail asking me about previous boyfriends and 現在の...
'I felt like a 強姦 犠牲者 on the stand.'
While the 落ちる-out from the Mail article is certainly unusual, the 乱用 is water off a duck's 支援する to me as an experienced 国家の newspaper 新聞記者/雑誌記者. For her 犠牲者s, however, it is 平易な to see how such obsessive calls, over months and years, can become unbearable.
In my 事例/患者, my teenage children who happen to be fans of Baby Reindeer, were 最初 alarmed by my 接触する with Martha. Now they have taken to calling me 'Daddy Reindeer'.
In the 結論するing episode of Baby Reindeer, Gadd's character Donny says how 激しく he 悔いるs the moment Martha got 持つ/拘留する of his telephone number.
Even as I type this article, approaching midnight, the repeated 'No 報知係 ID' calls are beginning again…