The mother of all cons...

[Bemorebeth]

Apologies if there is another thread on this. Couldn't see one.

Thoughts?

I think Jean was hoping for a romance between Meg and Harry Styles. There’s some people on the internet elsewhere who maintain that Jean wanted Harry for herself 🤢🤢🤢

Yes, that was so crazy. So many other lives put at risk there too.

@Harriet36 😖😂

The Pilot was happy to take them though. He must have been paid well to risk it, he knew it was a risk.

Wow

oooo this is on my list to watch tomorrow on my day off!!

Nowhere near as bad as this but my mother agreed to wholly unnecessary and painful surgeries for me when I was a child as the attention it brought to her was just what she wanted 'Poor lady with that sick child....' etc. She was on her own with me and even though, as I grew older and began to understand that none of it should have been done and questioned her, she still played the martyr and managed to somehow blame me for 'ruining her life'. Narcissistic mothers are everywhere!
It was and still is ruining mine actually!

Sickofthissick
I am sorry you were a victim of this awful situation with your own Mother. As parents we are meant to nurture and care for our loved ones. Abuse like this is so sad, I am not sure why people want to do it anyone. It is so hard to get your head around isn’t it.

Lot of money involved in that stunt.

Does anyone know why it would be redacted so heavily?

I guess the redaction is to protect parties involved but seems odd when the result has been death - who else are you protecting?

I do find it interesting the report mentions lack of shared records across NHS as that has come back in to the spotlight now - it could be so helpful in so many cases, not just issues like these.

Thank you. Yes, it's quite insane really. There was genuinely no medical need at all for her to put me through it all, and it's left me with CPTSD. I never got an apology or an explanation just her wailing 'I was a widow!' er...ok!

Yes indeed.

Just finished it, that poor girl and how awful preying on families going through the worst hell imaginable

Not quite on board with the “poor Meg” narrative. There are questions to be asked about her awareness of her “illness” surely?

I mean there’s a huge glaring discrepancy between her doing the response video, all hooked up to various machines and monitors, and then lugging suitcases? She MUST have known she wasn’t as ill as she was pretending to be.

See where you're coming from - but was she a willing participant? She was a child when this all started & clearly being manipulated, used and medically abused by her mother. She also lost her life very young at the end of all this. I see her as a victim of abuse, drugged out of her mind, who had little power to challenge her abuser.

Great Documentary!!!

Yeah I know what you mean but I still can’t square it in my mind. The video when she’s hooked up to monitors for example. How would that possibly go?

J: We’re going to have to respond to these allegations. Help me with this monitor and stick this in your arm. We need to make this convincing.

M: What?

J: I’ve written you a script. Learn it. Stick this oxygen prong up your nose while
you're at it.

A day later…

J: Right you take that trolley.

I’m not saying Meg was the mastermind but nor was she an innocent little flower.

Yes I know, and I agree to some extent too. It's very sordid.

I find it all really disgusting.

My son had a brain tumour and had the proton treatment in the US (NHS funded) which Jean claimed her daughter needed/raised money for Meg to have. The thought of someone trying to monetise a brain tumour fantasy is beyond me.

Meg isn’t here to defend herself, but I am surprised she wasn’t investigated after they had the photos of her getting off the cruise liner with bags. I know it was a PI who obtained those photos, but surely the police should have some interest at that point in where the money was going. To feel that they both got away with so much in plain sight is just awful, Jean was so good at batting away any criticism too. Not sure why any of that wasn’t followed up on.

She obviously definitely knew that she didn’t have a brain tumor. She knew she was deceiving people.

However Jean is definitely more responsible because she had been manipulated Meg since she was very little. Meg also died a completely preventable death and her mother played a role in this.

I think it’s hard to empathise but she’d been out of education a long time. Her mother was her world and I do think it’s possible she was just totally brainwashed and had no reference point for what was and wasn’t true.

Nowhere near this scale by my own mum has a loose relationship with truth. I went to school and have an otherwise normal life and it was only in my 20s I realised some of the more wild tales she told me were untrue because when you’re a kid you just believe what your parents say

The podcast is really good and goes deeper. I also thought the tin story was strange- basically in the podcast the daughter says as a mother if that kept happening she would’ve moved the tins- indicating that Jean wanted one of her children to be injured by them. Maybe she wasn’t as aggressive in her factious disorder until Meg came along.

also suprised that Meg had a breast reduction at 17 presumably to make her look more child like

Meg obv knew what was going on but was an abused child and adult- she was dependant and totally clueless about normal life I suspect

Meg absolutely knew she didn’t have a brain tumour. She also knew she wasn’t having hospital treatment all those times her mother said she was.

Meg clearly wasn’t a stupid girl. It’s tempting to think of her as a victim and yes, ultimately she paid for all this with her life but in her way she was every bit as cunning and cynical as her mother.

Her friend Will is the epitome of “nice but dim”.