Love you to death - channel 4

[autumnleavesonthefloor]

Is anyone else watching?

I can’t say a lot because it’s very outing but I grew up with this family. So surreal seeing it all like this. They’re some of my earliest memories.

Wow really? Just watching it now, so far mum seems adamant she’s done nothing wrong and that he was definitely ill beyond his premature birth and immediate concerns/complications. Medical professionals seem to be disagreeing.
I’m a few minutes behind because I paused to brush my teeth and get into bed!

Really.

I was at school and remember when they had to make a ton of changes to accommodate him. He used to wear a bright hat so that he was easy to spot in a fire evacuation. I really vividly remember when the mum “broke her leg” and she was up to the thigh in a cast. My mum used to help out a lot, I’ve been in their house! It’s so weird to watch it

And yes @TheChosenTwothe mum was always adamant she did nothing wrong. She lied about a rape and she was always adamant it happened.

Blimey that’s really shocking.
feel so sorry for the lad and also his sister, what a weird childhood despite the sister saying she remembers her childhood as being quite happy. It was clearly incredibly disfunctional. I notice the dad hasn’t made an appearance, I wonder what his take on all of this would be.

He was absolutely broken by it, from what I recall. The kids were taken off him for a while and then they all moved away. It was all very sudden.

The mum was always really aggressive, with everyone. I remember her shouting at me in the school playground for the most random of things, anything she perceived as a slight against the family. She was a really good manipulator and had everyone under her thumb. She befriended a family with a daughter with special needs, the girls were best friends. It’s all still so hard to believe

Awful. Presumably he just didn’t know?
The sister said her dad worked at Morrisons so I’m guessing mum was left to do the day to day care and she just told him what she wanted to know.
What do people like her get out of this? What a desperately sad thing to happen to her kids, subjecting this young lad to such pointless stays in hospital and unnecessary tests and treatments etc. attention?

They got so much attention, money, everything.

They got their entire house renovated by the local authority for free, and she used the new rooms to house foreign students for money. She was awful, she loved it all.

Will watch. The hat thing sound odd!

It was really strange. The entire thing was bizarre

Just a small note - the hospital they’re showing isn’t Torbay!!! It’s Brixham, which isn’t used to actively treat patients anymore besides some outpatient clinics lol

This must be strange for you OP. Maybe it was from his start of life in NICU. She maybe enjoyed the new role as a carer? It's all very sad but he seems to be doing well now. Strange case and odd she's so adamant she was right all these years later

I'm watching this now, good to get another perspective on it so thanks OP!

So you knew the family?
Not grew up 'with them'

It’s seriously bizarre. It’s bringing back some really, really vivid memories. I can remember their house - it smelt exactly like a hospital.

I remember when he came to our house for a birthday party. He ate a sausage roll, some strawberries and then ran into the paddling pool. He had the time of his life, bless him. Then his mum comes to pick them up and she’s screaming at my mum saying he can’t have any of that, and if he dies it’s my mum’s fault. He was fine, obviously.

I remember “the rape” too. That really affected his sister, and knowing none of it happened is just so crazy.

Well we all grew up together, we were very close.

@autumnleavesonthefloor god poor kids! I wonder if he ever needed those feeding tubes and oxygen...she really seems to think he was ill. She sounds quite unstable. Do you think she did it all for the attention / money?

He never needed any of it.

Definitely. I was about 7 or 8 and she told me about the rape, at a kids birthday party. She just wanted attention from everyone.

She also threw herself out of bed when she was in hospital, pressing herself against a radiator for hours to burn herself. She tried to sue the hospital for negligence.

She also faked a broken leg on more than one occasion, she gave herself a plaster cast up to the top of her thigh, and never really had explanations for how she broke her leg.

I watched it.

I’m agog as to how it all managed to go on for so long tbh. He saw so many doctors, she alleged he had so many problems, but didn’t show the symptoms, and his sister, and seemingly OP, saw him eating and drinking normally yet no one ever thought to speak up. It makes no sense. She must have been a very manipulative, convincing woman.

Saying that, though, how did his dad never see him eating and drinking when other people did? It makes no sense at all.

The guy was interviewed on This Morning today. I've not watched this programme yet, but I cant fathom how medical professionals would do something like insert a feeding tube without having done tests that showed it was definitely needed? Did they say?

His dad did.

She was a very, very aggressive woman. She made no secret of the fact she would do anything to keep it up, she lied about being raped to try and get out of being investigated. To this day she believes that happened. She would just lie and bully people into believing she was right. Take for example the birthday party, she told my mum he would die and it’s her fault, she gave him an EpiPen and then rushed him away. It was always so aggressive, so life threatening and so intense. The week after the party her daughter was telling everyone my mum tried to kill her brother - everyone around them was just indoctrinated and under the belief it was all real.

@autumnleavesonthefloor what strange memories!!! It's must all be coming back

I saw her say she still thinks the rape is real.

It still makes no sense to me. From old news articles the courts decided the dad had nothing to do with it, yet if he knew that the little lad could eat and drink he should have spoken up imo. No way would I have stood back and watched my son go through all sorts of unnecessary medical procedures and be medicated unnecessarily.

It’s seriously so bizarre

i think it’s hard to get a sense from the documentary of just how ruthless she was. She would stop at nothing to get her own way - she went from doctor to doctor, faked test results, was horrible to everyone. It was her way or the highway

@autumnleavesonthefloor I grew up in the same town. He is the same sort of age as my neice. Can you DM me if he went to a school beginning with E?