The stalker from Netflix sensation Baby Reindeer harassed my family for five years… she even threatened to kill my MP husband

Something astir nan female connected her tv surface made Laura Wray consciousness uneasy. The lawyer, and widow of a Labour MP, was relaxing astatine home, captivated by nan opening minutes of nan Netflix sensation Baby Reindeer, peculiarly by nan characteristic Martha who stalks a struggling comedian.

What was it astir Martha that seemed truthful familiar? Maybe nan raucous laughter that seemed to past conscionable a spot excessively long, aliases nan measurement she clutched her handbag to her broadside erstwhile timidly entering a pub. Whatever it was astir this curly-haired Scot, she reminded Laura of personification from her past. The realisation came for illustration an electrical jolt, and Laura slumped backmost connected her sofa, open-mouthed.

For she knew Martha only excessively well, aliases alternatively nan existent Martha, who, much than a 4th of a period earlier, upended Laura's happy life pinch a relentless five-year harassment campaign. It was truthful fierce astatine 1 shape that Laura was forced to rumor unit astatine her Glasgow rule patient pinch panic alarms.

In 1 segment from nan play Martha flips from exuberance to screaming rage successful an instant. 'That put it beyond uncertainty – I've seen her do that,' says Laura.

Baby Reindeer, which has been watched by 13 cardinal viewers successful conscionable 2 weeks, topping nan Netflix charts successful 30 countries, is based connected nan real-life acquisition of its creator, Richard Gadd, who plays a type of himself, an aspiring comic.

One day, Martha walks into nan pub wherever he useful and boasts of being a hotshot lawyer though, inexplicably, a collapsed one. Taking pity, he makes her a cup of tea. So originates nan commencement of a terrifying obsession.

Soon she is emailing Gadd hundreds of times a day, turning up extracurricular his location and harassing his family and friends.

Over a play of four-and-a-half years, Gadd says he received 41,071 emails, 744 tweets, letters totalling 106 pages and 350 hours of voicemail messages.

The bid besides hints astatine Martha's erstwhile history of stalking. Gadd's characteristic Donny is seen googling her and uncovering a newspaper article – fictionalised for nan show – pinch nan headline: 'Sick stalker targets barrister's deaf child.'

Gadd has insisted nan characteristic of Martha was truthful good disguised successful his book that nan real-life personification she was based connected 'would not recognise herself'. But for Laura – nan 'barrister' referred to successful those clone headlines – nan shocking nickname of nan female who had terrorised her family, including her severely abnormal boy Frankie, was almost instant.

Nor did it return agelong for net sleuths to uncover nan existent Martha and target her pinch maltreatment online.

Speaking to The Mail connected Sunday yesterday, nan female – whose personality we person chosen not to disclose – claimed nan Netflix show amounted to 'bullying an older female connected tv for fame and fortune' and that she had received 'death threats' from Gadd's supporters. The comedian, she said, was 'using Baby Reindeer to stalk maine now'.

But while 'Martha' whitethorn beryllium keen to overgarment herself arsenic a victim, for Laura that is simply a tad ironic.

If anything, Laura's nightmare eclipsed that of Gadd. At 1 shape 'Martha' made a decease threat against her husband, Jimmy Wray, past MP for Glasgow Baillieston.

But nan last straw came successful 2002 erstwhile nan female falsely accused nan mates of assaulting Frankie, past astir 4 years old, who was calved pinch a uncommon chromosomal disorder. 'I cognize Martha by her existent name, but my jaw dropped watching nan series,' said Laura, speaking exclusively to The Mail connected Sunday for nan first clip astir her ordeal

'It brought truthful galore things backmost to maine that I'd forgotten. She did nan aforesaid to me, made my life a nightmare. He [Gadd] has sewage her spot-on. His guidance was precisely nan aforesaid arsenic mine. I felt sorry for her. Everybody she's travel crossed and pestered nan life retired of has felt nan same, it seems.'

The existent 'Martha', now 58, is from a middle-class family who lived successful a colony adjacent Stirling.

She was a rule postgraduate and first came into Laura's orbit successful October 1997, erstwhile Laura was persuaded to springiness her a two-week proceedings astatine her company. 'She told maine a existent hard-luck communicative astir really she had nary family support and really she sewage her rule grade and was looking for a traineeship, but cipher would springiness her one,' says Laura.

'I had my reservations. She was terribly upfront, telling maine each this very individual stuff. Before we moreover met, she sent maine a postcard congratulating maine connected my engagement to Jimmy. But basically, I felt sorry for her.

'Once she started pinch america she was rude to everyone. Once she threw a book crossed nan room and deed a personnel of unit connected nan head. One day, she parented a telephone statement and we discovered she was recommending rival solicitors.

'She besides shouted astatine Karen, 1 of my secretaries, and demanded she driblet everything other she was doing for maine and alternatively do thing for her immediately.

'Then she began threatening group and screaming, for illustration successful Baby Reindeer erstwhile she goes from being rather pleasant to shouting, 'Don't speak to maine for illustration that!'

'She did nan aforesaid [in my office] and I told her, 'We're a business I can't person that benignant of behaviour.' I fired her aft a week. She was furious and threatened that she'd do this, that and nan different to me.

'She past ran from my room screaming that she was not going to time off and that she was calling nan Law Society. She was saying that everyone successful nan ineligible world disliked maine and that my unit were useless. Then she started shouting, 'Jimmy Wray will rue nan day'.

'Some of nan girls successful nan agency were shaking and upset and thought she was going to onslaught maine aliases immoderate of nan different staff. Eventually she was escorted out, still calling maine vile names, and was later spotted circling nan agency successful her car.'

Soon she was bombarding Laura pinch threatening telephone calls saying 'I'll get you', and disparaging her to different solicitors, her family, friends and governmental associates of her husband, among them Donald Dewar, Scotland's inaugural First Minister.

In September 2001, nan female moreover near a connection connected her MP's answering machine, threatening to termination Jimmy. Feeling 'genuinely sorry' for her, Laura tried to disregard it. She says: 'Back past location wasn't authorities astir stalking aliases harassing.

'There was nary evident correct of recourse for me. The only point I could person done was sued for defamation but location was nary point, she had nary money and nan only different action was utilizing civilian process which wasn't really designed for that benignant of thing.'

Yet her reserves of compassion would soon tally dry.

Things escalated erstwhile Laura started a people astatine nan University of Strathclyde nan pursuing period to get immoderate further qualifications. On nan first day, she bumped into her stalker – staring astatine her crossed a room, her regard for illustration a harpoon. 'She kept turning up now and again astatine lectures I went to. She was conscionable abruptly there.

'Quite a fewer times she came and stood beside maine arsenic students waited for nan speech room doors to open. I person recollections of her correct adjacent to maine – almost breathing complete me. It was very unnerving, and I was frightened. I had to get immoderate of nan different students to locomotion maine to my car.

'I went to spot a professor and explained everything and he looked up nan database and said she's not really registered arsenic a student. But nan assemblage ignored maine and did nothing.'

The assemblage later apologised, admitting that nan female had, successful fact, been a student but had been permanently excluded for her behaviour towards different students and staff.

But it was successful April 2002 that her behaviour yet crossed a statement for Laura. She arrived location pinch Frankie, past astir four, to find 2 societal workers astatine her door.

'[The woman] had claimed we deed our boy and I was forced to explicate each nan background,' Laura says. 'The societal workers thankfully believed maine but it was conscionable dreadful, and I was perfectly furious.

'This is simply a kid who couldn't locomotion aliases speak, couldn't do thing for himself. To deliberation that personification could propose we would do this [harm him] is vicious and cruel.

'It was each good and bully to constitute personification disconnected arsenic mentally sick and conscionable disregard nan harassment. But nan last point was Frankie, and I wasn't having that.'

Laura applied to nan courts for a restraining order, which was granted nan pursuing day.

For Laura and her family, it gave them long-awaited peace. But complete nan years she would occasionally find herself wondering what happened to her stalker. Did she target others? Did she get nan thief she needed?

And past came Baby Reindeer. 'I consciousness sad that she managed to gaffe done nan cracks for truthful agelong erstwhile she's intelligibly unwell,' Laura says.

She's dismayed, too, that nan female has now been identified connected societal media arsenic a consequence of nan Netflix show – contempt Gadd's insistence that he had obscured her identity.

'He's had an Edinburgh Fringe show that featured this communicative and now he's sewage this deed bid connected Netflix and perfectly bully luck to him, but it must person occurred to him that group were bound to estimate connected who Martha is – and whether she's done this to anyone else,' says Laura.

'They could person changed things without diluting nan content, but they've made it truthful realistic.

'They person portrayed her perfectly spot on, it is truthful evidently nan female who stalked me. It is truthful uncanny.'

Additional reporting: Daisy Graham-Brown