A former colleague of Baby Reindeer star Richard Gadd has cast doubt on the actor’s claims that he was attacked by a stalker at the celebrity pub where they worked.
The bar worker claimed Fiona Harvey was among vulnerable women exploited by male members of staff at the Hawley Arms in Camden, north London.
The woman, now in her early 30s, said she felt “uncomfortable” working at the establishment due to its “misogynistic culture” fueled by “drug use, alcohol and promiscuity.”
She told MailOnline: ‘Something doesn’t sit right with me about him presenting himself as the innocent party and being bullied. It just doesn’t fit my perception of working there.
‘I worked there the same years as him and with the same staff.
A former colleague of Baby Reindeer star Richard Gadd has cast doubt on the actor’s claims that he was attacked by a stalker at the celebrity pub where they worked (pictured: The Hawley Arms).
Richard Gadd based his show Baby Reindeer on his experience at the Hawley Arms
The bar worker claimed Fiona Harvey (pictured) was among vulnerable women exploited by male members of staff at the Hawley Arms.
‘There was an underlying joke. I feel bad for her. She was clearly vulnerable and clearly alone.
“I think she was considered a joke among the male staff members and he made her laugh.
‘She must have gotten the impression that he liked her because of this, hence the alleged harassment.
“I just don’t like the idea of someone vulnerable being taken advantage of.
‘They targeted someone who was vulnerable and thought it was funny. I really feel for her.
It’s clear that he’s not feeling very well. Why would you pursue someone who is clearly not stable?
The bar worker told how Harvey, 58, was a regular customer at the pub when she worked there in 2014.
She said: ‘He was a familiar face. She would be there maybe three times a week. She was always alone. She was never with anyone.
‘She would come in and just buy soft drinks. There were some people like that who used to go in there.
‘He usually sat at the table in the corner, quite far from the bar, near the stairs leading to the bar upstairs.
‘I remember her talking to another woman who was a regular, but I don’t remember her having any proper friends or anything like that.
‘She came simply looking for human interaction.
‘The staff were talking about her. The story she has portrayed doesn’t really reflect the environment in which I worked at all.
“She was looking for some company because there were people to talk to and I think he took that as a joke and now he’s made a lot of money from it and she’s still being made fun of.
‘Why would someone with a stable mind target and encourage someone who was clearly mentally vulnerable?’
“I really think it was all a big joke to entertain them.”
The bar worker told how Harvey, 58, was a regular at the pub when he worked there with Gadd (pictured) in 2014.
In the first episode of the hit Netflix show, Gadd, as the character Donny Dunn, shows the first meeting with his stalker, when he offers him a cup of tea.
In the first episode of the hit Netflix show, Gadd, as character Donny Dunn, shows her first encounter with her stalker, when he offers her a free cup of tea because she seems upset.
The bar worker said: “That certainly didn’t happen.” She didn’t drink tea as he said: there was no tea.
“There was a coffee machine, but I never served coffee to anyone there and there was no tea back then.”
Another scene shows one of Gadd/Dunn’s fellow bar workers using his phone to send Fiona/Martha’s character a lewd message as a joke, which she then interprets as him making sexual advances when in fact she’s the one. butt of the joke.
The pub, once a biker haven on the outskirts of trendy Camden Market, was one of Amy Winehouse’s favorite hangouts and the late singer was even pictured helping pour pints behind the bar.
Supermodel Kate Moss and her ex-partner Pete Doherty were also among the celebrity clientele along with Liam Gallagher and Bake Off star Noel Fielding.
The former worker said: “During the weekend she attracted all the people who came because they thought the Hawley Arms was the ideal place to be, but during the week it was mostly ordinary people – that’s when she went. ‘
The former worker said she earned £6.31 an hour as one of a handful of female staff members in a team of 10 or 11 on duty during a busy shift.
The pub, once a biker haven on the outskirts of trendy Camden Market, was one of Amy Winehouse’s favorite hangouts and the late singer was even pictured helping pour pints behind the bar.
Gadd’s former colleague accused him of “making a lot of money” from the vulnerable Harvey.
The pub was run at the time by an all-male management team.
She said: ‘It was a very misogynistic workplace.
‘There were always jokes about women and people targeting women and trying to sleep with certain people. That was the culture.
‘I was subjected to that too.
‘It made me feel uncomfortable, but you felt like you had to put up with it in order to receive your salary.
‘There was an alliance between the women who worked there. We looked out for each other because we knew what they were like.
‘Even the first week I worked there, another woman warned me to stay away from certain people who worked there or certain regulars who drank there because they were womanizers.
‘It was just accepted culture at the time. It was normalized and to be part of that clique you had to accept those things.
‘I know they hired me because one of them wanted to sleep with me because it was an open joke. He was very young and very naive and a little stupid for letting me get carried away.
‘Intimate details about me were even spread and I was mocked, which was aggravating; Just because I’m a woman, why should I put up with that, especially in the workplace?
‘I heard the male members of staff many times joking about the girls and the people they slept with and the people they liked.
‘Staff were constantly sleeping with clients and getting numbers. It was quite pathetic.
“There was a bull run almost every night. People drank until 3 a.m. at table 13, known as the party table, and customers were invited to these lock-ins, especially women they liked.
The woman told how she ultimately decided to leave her job for her own well-being.
She said: ‘It was just a culture of drug use, alcohol and promiscuity in terms of staff and generally.
‘Mentally I felt exhausted so I left. I didn’t want to be around that culture and those types of people anymore.
‘I chose to leave for my own well-being. I never worked in a pub again after that; That discouraged me.
Sources close to Mr Gadd said Ms Harvey’s bullying and anti-social behavior was well known and her unpleasant behavior towards Mr Gadd was a matter of record.
