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The.Mother.of.All.Cons.S01E03.Answers
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00:11The day of Meg's funeral was horrendous.
00:20Meg was such an important person to me.
00:23He still is.
00:25Just, I didn't know what to think.
00:37Jean was a mother grieving the loss of her daughter.
00:43And I know how that feels.
00:58I wanted to be there for her like she was there for me.
01:06A lot of the Believe in Magic families wanted to come and pay their respects from all over the UK
01:13because they loved Meg.
01:18And the magic that she gave those children and the memories she made and the joy, the laughter and everything.
01:34Halfway there, I get the strangest message from Jean.
01:40And then I had to ring as many people as I knew to say, like, stop, turn around and go
01:51home.
01:52The funeral had been cancelled.
01:56What? In what world? When does this ever happen?
02:06The whole thing just felt really surreal.
02:09And I was just so confused.
02:12Like, I've never heard of a funeral really being cancelled.
02:18More investigations have been done.
02:21They're not releasing the body.
02:23Even in death, this doesn't add up.
02:26What?
02:27Hasn't the coroner released the body?
02:29Is this an illegal funeral?
02:30What?
02:37It seemed bizarre that they were doing that because Meg had had a brain tumour her whole life and had
02:44died from a brain tumour.
02:45It just seemed to be adding insult to injury and on such short notice as well when everyone's worked themselves
02:50up towards that day.
02:54People are posting that the funeral has been stopped.
02:58There's talk of the police being involved.
03:03And I'm like, gosh, that's my email.
03:20Once upon a time, a little girl lived with her mother in a small stone cottage.
03:27It's been the most incredible year, really.
03:30Believing magic has grown so much.
03:33The little girl was poorly, but all she thought about was helping other poorly children.
03:39It's run by me and my mum.
03:41We've just brought magic to so many poorly children.
03:44I love magic.
03:47Believing magic was like no other charity.
03:50It was more like a family.
03:53Meg and Jean were the fairy godmothers.
03:56They would just appear and sprinkle their magic.
04:01Hi, I'm Louis from One Direction.
04:02Me and the boys have been working with Meg and Jean now for almost as long as we've been in
04:06band.
04:06The power and might of One Direction put this celebrity rocket under the feet of Meg and Jean.
04:17And they did do unbelievable things.
04:22It seemed like the perfect fairy tale.
04:26But was it too good to be true?
04:32Were they amazing women?
04:35Was Megan really sick?
04:37Was Megan really sick?
04:39Or is this one big scam?
04:41We were going to find out what the truth was.
04:47You throw disgusting accusations at us.
04:50I hope so much that you'll see how well you've been.
04:55They're out for blood.
04:57And they got it.
05:00Not all fairy tales end happily ever after.
05:25I was feeling uneasy about the fact that Megan had passed away.
05:31And it was Jean's update a couple of days after Megan's death that had prompted that concern.
05:39At 11.53 on the 28th of March 2018, my whole world changed.
05:47According to Jean, Megan had eight heart attacks.
05:51And they're mentions like the sepsis.
05:54Maybe there's an element of truth but there's such exaggeration.
05:59Why did you believe the sepsis bit though at this point?
06:02Because of them walking off the boat.
06:06So I knew that she didn't have severe sepsis and I thought,
06:09Jean, what are you capable of if you can lie about your own daughter's death?
06:15Like who does that?
06:17And then Jean updates to say that Megan would be cremated.
06:23Sounds awful but there was a finite amount of time.
06:26After that, there was no evidence of what happened to Megan.
06:30So I contacted Great Ormond Street and said,
06:34Is it possible to speak to someone about a death at your hospital?
06:37The mother is lying about her daughter's death and I'm concerned there may be suspicious circumstances.
06:43Joanna Ashcraft.
06:49But I had no idea where it would all lead.
07:13But I had no idea where it would all lead.
07:16We are here today to resume the inquest touching the death of Megan Elizabeth Beatrice Bari.
07:24I'm obliged to hold an inquest into every death where cause of which is either apparently unnatural or apparently unknown.
07:34If someone dies unexpectedly, then an inquest is held.
07:40I just feel like, ah, this is it. Finally, we're going to get some answers of what really happened.
07:46An inquest is to establish the how, when and where somebody died.
07:54And the inquest would actually give us the actual cause of death.
08:00I'd become so invested and I'd put my reputation on the line and been under attack.
08:08Because Jean was telling people that we were responsible for Megan's death.
08:14And people believed her.
08:18So there was part of me that thought, I'm glad that here we will find out what was the reality.
08:25What does the autopsy show?
08:29I'm going to call the pathologist who conducted the post-mortem examination for his opinion of the medical cause of
08:35death.
08:38Histologically, I didn't find any significant changes except in the liver, where I saw very severe fatty change, replacement of
08:46the normal tissue of the liver by fat.
08:49So, the only pathological change of note was fatty liver disease.
08:54I offered probable cause of death was acute cardiac arrhythmia due to fatty liver disease.
09:00She didn't die of a heart attack, she died of cardiac arrhythmia, an abnormal rhythm of the heart caused by
09:11severe fatty liver disease.
09:16That doesn't make any sense to me at all.
09:20How does a 23-year-old die of fatty liver disease?
09:26Were you surprised by that?
09:28Shocked.
09:30Having heard all of this evidence, the cause of Megan's death is she had a fatty liver that doesn't appear
09:37to have been related to alcohol or diabetes or any other factor that we know about.
09:43Save perhaps that she had a high body mass index.
09:48So actually, I am left with a natural cause of death.
09:53This doesn't make any sense.
09:56Fatty liver is very treatable and the symptoms are nothing like the symptoms of a brain tumour.
10:03It just gave me so many more questions and I just couldn't understand it.
10:07Over the years, they've made so many claims about Meg's different health conditions.
10:12I think for me, the question is, did she have a brain tumour?
10:23Externally, there were signs of resuscitation efforts.
10:26Otherwise, there were no signs of external injury.
10:29The brain itself appeared morphologically normal.
10:38She didn't have a brain tumour.
10:42She didn't have a brain tumour.
10:45It pretty much vindicated everything that we'd said all along.
10:49It's irrefutable.
10:53All these families that had welcomed Megan and Jean into their life have to accept now that it was all
11:03based on a lie.
11:07I was definitely angry.
11:09I was definitely angry.
11:11I was angry at Meg.
11:12I was angry to think that she'd lied and that she hadn't been ill.
11:20I just can't understand why you would say that to someone if you didn't think it was true.
11:25And why, kind of, she did what she did.
11:29I felt sick.
11:31I felt absolutely sick.
11:35It was the fact that she chose a brain tumour and that's what my daughter died of.
11:43It's disgusting. It's horrible.
11:44I feel like they almost preyed upon my vulnerability and all the other vulnerabilities of all the other parents.
11:52What do you think of the fact that the Collins inquest didn't find a brain tumour?
11:59In my head, it's possible they missed it or something happened.
12:05It's like I'm looking at facts, but they don't agree with what my experience has been.
12:11So I can only believe that the facts are wrong.
12:15Why would she have symptoms if she wasn't ill?
12:19How did she get the drugs to compensate those symptoms?
12:23Just none of it makes sense.
12:41Girl fakes brain tumour to dupe scars out of cash.
12:46The charity got closed down.
12:49A large amount of money was missing.
12:52But Jean blamed Megan and said that Megan dealt with receipts.
12:58And the punishment for Jean was that she couldn't be a trustee for five years.
13:02And Megan wasn't here to defend herself.
13:06You couldn't avoid it. It was all over social media.
13:10And that was just horrendous.
13:14That was when it really hit me that I'd lost my sister, that Meg was dead.
13:19I remember just sobbing my eyes up.
13:23And I felt quite shameful for doing that.
13:27Like I didn't have a right to.
13:30Because I didn't really know Meg very well.
13:34You better know me now!
13:36Back then, I had these negative thoughts and feelings about Meg because of all the lies that they were both
13:43telling.
13:44And I found her childlike manner as an adult irritating.
13:51So, I'm not saying like Meg's this innocent child.
13:55You know, she was 23 years old.
13:58She was a fully grown adult.
14:00But in that whole article, there was only one line about Jean.
14:04And it just says that her mum, Jean, was a trustee.
14:07And that's it.
14:10They were both the public faces of Believe in Magic.
14:15Jean was by her side throughout the whole thing, through every lie.
14:22And then, Jean disappears.
14:30I hear from family that after the inquest, Jean moved over to France.
14:37From that point, Jean then vanished.
14:40She cut contact with everyone.
14:45And for me, things shifted a bit.
14:49Was Meg to blame, like all the papers are saying.
14:53Or did she actually think she was ill?
14:58I need to speak to people.
15:01I need to speak to people that I remember from Meg's childhood.
15:04So, I reached out to Beth.
15:09I love you.
15:12They were inseparable from the age of 10.
15:19What did Beth see?
15:24Hi.
15:25How are you?
15:27Very nice to see you.
15:29Likewise.
15:29It's been, what, 12, 13 years since I last saw you?
15:35It's crazy.
15:37I've just got so many questions.
15:38Yeah.
15:40Don't we all?
15:41And I just feel like, as Meg's best friend,
15:45you might have some answers.
15:48How did you see things like that?
15:50I fully believe that Meg thought she was as ill as they were saying.
15:56Yeah, I mean, if your mum tells you you're ill,
16:01you believe her.
16:03So, as far as you girls are concerned,
16:06she's genuinely ill.
16:08Yeah. This is happening.
16:09Like, going to her bag, it's bottles of morphine,
16:14pill pot after pill pot.
16:15She had alarms on her phone to go through the schedule of,
16:20like, what she should be taking when.
16:23Never missed a dosage.
16:26I've got some photos of,
16:28from when I went to visit her in hospital with Alex.
16:32Yeah, she was just sat in hospital beds
16:34with, like, a valve coming out of her skull.
16:39Oh, wow, yeah.
16:40Yeah.
16:42You would never question that.
16:46Jean was there with her.
16:48Did you see them together?
16:50Like, what did you think when you saw them together?
16:52So, I think when I first met her,
16:54obviously, like, we were...
16:56ten.
16:59And, yeah, like, Jean just came across as, like, this doting mother.
17:03And, obviously, with the illness,
17:05I think, like, that doting turned into controlling.
17:09Yeah.
17:10Always wanting to know where Meg was,
17:12what she was doing, who she was with,
17:14when she would be home.
17:16I think Jean hated when I got my driving licence on a car,
17:22because it then gave Meg a bit of freedom and independence away from her.
17:26Yeah.
17:26Because I can imagine that, yeah.
17:28Yeah.
17:29Yeah.
17:30But I think Meg fully believes that if she did one thing wrong,
17:36that would be it.
17:48Meeting Beth, I absolutely believed her.
17:52She is honest and genuine.
17:55And if Meg did genuinely think she was ill,
17:59then how did that happen?
18:04What was Jean's part in all of this?
18:15I've got quite a lot to show you.
18:20What have you done?
18:22I've managed to get hold of a lot of Meg's medical records.
18:28I didn't realise there would be so much.
18:33How much do you reckon is that all together?
18:35Oh, thousands.
18:38Thousands.
18:41And what I found really interesting
18:45was there was repeated visits to doctors and hospitals.
18:51Going back to 2002, when Meg would have been seven,
18:56they're going to the doctors for...
19:01...clicky joints.
19:03Abdo pain.
19:05Feels hot but no temp.
19:07Going to the hospitals for laboratory testing.
19:11Scans.
19:13Headache, headache, sore throat, sore throat.
19:16So it goes on for a while.
19:17Yeah.
19:18It's almost like Jean wanted the doctors
19:22to find something wrong with Meg.
19:23And when I kind of look back for all of this,
19:27it does make me think of some memories from when I was little.
19:33Before Meg was born, I had two older brothers and older sister.
19:40And in our kitchen, we had a big blue aga there.
19:45To the left as you came in, you had the farmhouse table.
19:49And so those four of us would sit around the table.
19:53And just above the table was this cupboard.
20:00And every time we'd sit down for dinner,
20:05tins would roll off the top of the cupboard.
20:10And nearly hit us on the head.
20:16We would play this game.
20:18You'd hear the sound of the roll.
20:22And you'd just kind of be like...
20:25Pretend to be like ninjas.
20:30And the table was like battered from where all the tins fell off.
20:37It kind of just dawned on me as I got older.
20:39I was like...
20:40Why did you put the tins on top of the cupboard rather than inside the cupboards?
20:44The cupboards weren't full.
20:47Why were they always falling at the times that we sat down for dinner?
20:52And it was almost like Jean wanted an accident.
20:55She wanted one of us to have an accident.
20:58I just don't understand why Jean would do that.
21:06I was trying to find answers myself and just start looking up stuff online.
21:11And just going down all these rabbit holes.
21:14And I came across an article written by Dr. Mark Feldman.
21:20I'm a psychiatrist and I've been interested in medical child abuse for over 30 years.
21:28He's an expert on Munchausen by proxy.
21:31And it's not something I'd ever heard of before.
21:34I didn't know anything about it.
21:37Munchausen by proxy is a form of abuse in which an individual, usually the mother,
21:44feigns, exaggerates or actually induces illness in the mother's own child.
21:52And they do it because they find it inherently gratifying to get attention and sympathy.
21:59It also keeps the child dependent, which is something that a lot of the perpetrators, in fact, relish.
22:08It just ticked a lot of boxes.
22:11And it was just like, oh, fuck.
22:15What if this is Munchausen by proxy?
22:22I was up late at nights reading every article, every Reddit post that I could get my hands on to
22:30kind of get an idea of what Meg may have experienced.
22:34And then I came across Carrie.
22:39When I describe what happened to me, I just say, I'm a survivor of Munchausen by proxy.
22:45That's the name most people know.
22:46I think medical child abuse is a much more prescient term because it names the effect of what she did.
23:00I lived a life where I was told I was always going to feel ill.
23:06The diagnoses that my mom found for me were colic, projectile vomiting, oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, and fibromyalgia, which is
23:21chronic pain.
23:25People say that they remembered my parents seeming like they had it all, that they were living the American dream.
23:33But I think my mom saw illness everywhere.
23:39When I was around seven, I remember my mom making juice and her putting pills in it and saying, like,
23:49don't tell anybody because I was going to a summer camp.
23:56My mom would also doctor shop and just like desperately beg for morphine.
24:00And we would practice what we needed to say in advance.
24:05But I didn't think we were lying.
24:07If you talk to her, doctors inherently sort of, they're gatekeeper.
24:12So you have to sort of use the right language to get what you as a patient need.
24:20What happens with Munchausen by proxy is not one moment or one lie.
24:24It's a whole world that they're presenting.
24:29What I think is an under-discussed fact about Munchausen by proxy is about 50% of cases do start
24:36with the kid actually having a problem.
24:38And then the mom starts exaggerating and lying.
24:43Reading about Kari's life is fascinating because, like her, Meg did have something wrong.
24:50There was a diagnosis there.
24:55In 2008, when Meg was 13, Gene takes Meg into hospital saying that she's been screaming in pain and experiencing
25:07blurred vision and headaches.
25:10Eventually, they did diagnose her with IIH, which is idiopathic intracranial hypertension, which is a build-up of fluid around
25:20the brain.
25:22And she has a shunt put into her skull.
25:25So you can see here a tube that goes from her brain down into her abdomen to drained fluid, which
25:36helps regulate the pressure in her brain.
25:40Is there mention of the brain tumour then anywhere?
25:45At one point, Meg is being investigated for a pituitary tumour, but quite likely might require neurosurgical intervention.
25:55They very quickly rule that out.
25:59But it's almost like that planted the seed for Gene, because from that point onwards, she starts tweeting,
26:06My poorly daughter has a brain tumour.
26:13This is all around the same time that they've started the charity Believe in Magic.
26:20Gene's tweeting a lot of celebrities, pulling at heartstrings, and it is just kind of relentless.
26:29Within the first nine months of her opening her Twitter account, Gene's tweeted One Direction over 500 times.
26:38It's like some obsession.
26:42But it worked, you know.
26:45Technically, she's a marketing genius.
26:47And Meg's brain tumour is basically their branding.
26:57So this is the Cinderella Bowl in 2015.
27:02This was kind of their big, bumpy year for the charity.
27:06It just looks like this fairy tale.
27:13You've got the red carpet.
27:15You've got One Direction turning up, you know.
27:18Look at the cameras.
27:19This was massive.
27:23All of this was on the basis of Meg having a brain tumour.
27:27And none of those people know the truth.
27:34Well, she does.
27:37She's been told.
27:39We don't get the funding that all the big charities get, so we are desperate for all your funding.
27:44She's up there, front and centre, rubbing shoulders with celebrities.
27:49That's all she's ever dreamed of.
27:51That's what she loves and thrives on.
27:55She felt that that's where she belonged.
28:02She has no shame as long as her end goal gets her what she wants and needs.
28:12Watching this, I do see more characteristics of Much Houser by Proxy.
28:18Both Meg and Jean seem to be really enjoying the kind of attention.
28:24But what I don't know is how much did Meg really understand of what was going on and what was
28:32happening with her health.
28:35So I went back to Cairo's story.
28:39She managed to escape her mum and Munch Houser by Proxy.
28:42But to do that, she had to leave America.
28:48Thank you so much for meeting with me.
28:51There are so many questions that if I could, I would want to ask Meg.
28:58Did you believe that you were ill at the time?
29:02Yeah.
29:03Yeah.
29:04I think it's so easy for people in the age of true crime to sit in their armchair and play
29:09detective and be like, that child was old enough to have known better.
29:13Yeah.
29:13And I don't think people also realise what it would take for you to question an illness that you had
29:21that your mother and doctors seemed to justify.
29:24Even once I left home and I was never sick again, I just thought that this mysterious pain condition had
29:32gone into remission.
29:35So if someone had come up to you and said, let me help you, let me take you out of
29:39this.
29:39I would have turned against them and never spoken to them again.
29:41And then I would have told my mum and she would have never let me talk to them again.
29:45I was so wrapped around her finger that nobody could have told me.
29:51Yeah, it's a full on control over someone, isn't it?
29:55I don't know about you, but with Jean and Meg, Jean really isolated Meg.
29:59No, it sounds exactly like my life.
30:01You know, she was taken out of school at 13.
30:03Yes.
30:04I do feel like she infantised her as well.
30:07Meg did speak kind of with this quite lispy baby voice.
30:12She would have glitter on and kind of little bows in her hair.
30:16Yeah, yeah.
30:17If I started talking about my mum, I would start talking in this like childlike voice.
30:21Really?
30:21Which is supposedly really common.
30:24They were incredibly close, an unusual relationship.
30:27That's common.
30:28And it's also, she would say, she had to put Meg to bed.
30:32And I think Meg must have been about 20 at this point.
30:40Mm-hmm.
30:40And this was at quarter past seven.
30:42And she used to sleep in bed with Jean.
30:45So they used to sleep in the bed together.
30:47I didn't sleep in the bed with my mum, but she slept on a couch by my mattress.
30:51So, and she would just like have to be there to put me to sleep.
30:55Yeah.
30:55The same way.
30:57And I thought I needed that too.
31:00I was a teenager on high doses of morphine.
31:05From the ages of 15 to 17, I was on 80 milligrams of slow-release morphine daily.
31:14At a time when I weighed about 40 kilos.
31:17When the morphine wasn't enough to control my pain, my mom would crush up hydrocodeine into
31:22a powder and mix it with sugar and put it on a spoon and hold it under my tongue.
31:29She said it would get to my bloodstream faster.
31:32We had these morphine capsules that I think she probably took the powder in and out of
31:39or like up to the dose or down to the dose without telling me so that I had withdrawal.
31:44So I thought I was sick because whenever she wanted to, she could sort of pull the puppet
31:50strings and like make me sick, you know.
31:53How did it make you feel?
31:55Did you feel...
31:55Nothing.
31:57I think it kept me really compliant.
32:05So this is a list of all of Meg's prescriptions.
32:10So you see here from the beginning of January of 2012, she starts getting Oromorph.
32:17A week later, Oromorph.
32:19A week later, Oromorph.
32:21Then another week later, Oromorph.
32:23And then we go again, we go Oromorph.
32:30Oromorph.
32:32Oromorph.
32:33Oromorph.
32:34Oromorph.
32:35Oromorph.
32:36Oromorph.
32:37Oromorph.
32:37Oromorph.
32:37And you look at how many times this is not something someone's supposed to be on consistently,
32:45you know.
32:46That's pages of it.
32:48And we're still going.
32:51That's a lot of morphine.
32:53That's a lot of morphine.
33:02You could hear her coming a mile away.
33:04Because the glass bottles jangling together in her handbag and the pills.
33:09It was full to the top with medication.
33:12It was just, it weighed a tonne.
33:14But it went everywhere with her.
33:15Everywhere.
33:17I remember clearly being the Langham and seeing her swigging out of a bottle of Oromorph.
33:24This is a class A drug.
33:26It's for severe pain.
33:30And she was just like, like you would drink a can of Coke.
33:36And I'm thinking, that's Oromorph?
33:37What, what the hell?
33:39She was always, always swigging Oromorph out of a bottle.
33:43Always.
33:44And we always used to say to her, Meg, you shouldn't be taking that much.
33:46But she would claim that she was in so much pain that she needed it.
33:50The long-term use of morphine is not great for you.
33:54From sickness, to headaches, to shaking.
33:57It's awful.
33:59So maybe Meg really is feeling sick.
34:02But maybe it's because of all this morphine that she's taking.
34:08I think in hindsight, looking back, Meg was, like, addicted to morphine.
34:15She was taking it, like, multiple times a day.
34:18For pretty much our whole friendship, which was over several years.
34:24I remember once the three of us were staying in a hotel in London.
34:31And she was saying that it felt like she, like, couldn't get any air or couldn't get any oxygen, like,
34:35couldn't breathe.
34:36And Meg kept, like, losing consciousness.
34:39Like, she would kind of pass out.
34:43I remember Beth giving her mouth-to-mouth.
34:46When she came round, she didn't have any clue who I was, where she was, what was going on, why
34:53she was in so much pain.
34:55It was completely terrifying.
34:59Her reliance on morphine was increasing.
35:02She was having to take more and have it more frequently.
35:06And Jean never said anything about that.
35:10No, I think Jean just made sure she was taking what she needed when she needed.
35:20When you look at the amount of Oromorph that she was taking,
35:25what I want to know is why weren't the doctors doing anything?
35:31And then I came across this letter, which was brilliant, and it just shows that actually, they did try and
35:40help Meg.
35:40They were seeing that this wasn't right.
35:47Dr. Fawn writes here.
35:48It became apparent to me that she was taking a very large dose of medically prescribed opiates.
35:55I expressed my concern to the patient and her mother.
35:58I was concerned that she was a vulnerable young individual and potentially an opiate dependent.
36:04I attempted to arrange a multidisciplinary follow-up for the patient and informed her of this, but she did not
36:10re-attend to my clinics.
36:13So he's trying to get her some help and support, and they're advising Jean.
36:19Jean knows at this point that Megan is addicted to morphine, but she's not helping her.
36:28They just do what they always do.
36:30Jean cuts off contact and goes to a different hospital and tries someone else, and they just disappear.
36:37They've been rumbled.
36:40But because of this doctor, this does lead to the Oromorph prescription stopping a few months later.
36:49But according to her friends, she continues to take it for many more years.
36:59In 2016, before they went to America, Meg sent me a picture of the drug she was taking.
37:08Do you have the picture of the medications?
37:11Yep.
37:11So it says, oh, you know, just your average supply of life-saving drugs for six weeks.
37:18Piles and piles of pills and needles and morphine at the front.
37:28Bear in mind that each of these bottles laying down are 100 millilitres of morphine.
37:33Oh, and that each of those piles are stacked again at the back.
37:37And you know, there's five lots of 48 hour drug supplies hidden in our handbags and backpacks.
37:43I'm not really sure how my body is managing to function, to be honest.
37:48On some of them you can kind of see the Harrods prescription receipt as well.
37:54Because she'd collect it from Harrods pharmacy or?
37:58Yeah, I mean, that wouldn't be out of the question.
38:03How many bottles of morphine are on there?
38:0910, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12.
38:14Around 30 for six weeks.
38:17That's about five a week.
38:19It's about a bottle a day.
38:22But from my memory, I don't think that was uncommon for Meg to kind of go through a bottle in
38:28a day.
38:30That sounds like a vast amount of morphine to be taking every day.
38:36Um, it does.
38:39But I think at the time I thought Meg was in a vast amount of pain.
38:46Did it worry you that she was taking so much?
38:50Yeah, I did.
38:51But it's kind of the Meg I've always known, I guess.
38:57I know from the records that the NHS cut off their morphine prescription back in 2015.
39:05So the obvious question is, how are they getting that morphine?
39:21Orimorphone prescription as well?
39:21At the inquest, I remember there's a doctor who says he was contacted by Harrods pharmacy about an attempt to
39:30obtain Orimorphone prescription, using a, what he, I think his exact words were, a poor forgery.
39:37In November 2017, I was contacted by Harrods Pharmacy.
39:42I was told that there had been an attempt to obtain Oromorph
39:46with my name on the prescription.
39:49I was later sent a copy of the prescription
39:51and the signature was clearly a poor forgery.
39:54It did not look like mine.
39:58I actually found a copy of the forged prescription
40:03for Harrods Pharmacy in Meg's medical records.
40:07And this is it.
40:10So it says it's a private prescription.
40:13Very, very basic.
40:17An insane amount.
40:22Please dispense the following medications.
40:25Oromorph Oral Solution totaling 100ml per day.
40:29Total 2,800ml.
40:33Breakthrough Oromorph Oral Solution.
40:37Total 3,600ml.
40:41So that's 6,400ml of morphine in this one repeat prescription.
40:49And have you looked at what the recommended dosage is?
40:52Well, it said here before, the recommended dosage was, sorry, not even the recommended, the maximum adult dose being 1
41:02.7 litres a month.
41:04So this is more than three times what you're supposed to be having, or the maximum an adult's supposed to
41:10be on.
41:17I remember sometimes Gene would ask Meg to go to Harrods and pick up more prescription.
41:24I think we went a couple of times, if not more.
41:28The fact that it's Harrods is so on brand for Gene.
41:33Harrods was a status symbol.
41:36They would shop in the toy store there and buy all of the gifts for the charity.
41:42Meg would go and buy designer handbags.
41:45Harrods was their day out.
41:47Of all the places to fraudulently gain access to drugs, you do it in Harrods.
41:57I have so many questions about this.
41:59I didn't even know they had a pharmacy there.
42:01And so I contacted the coroners and asked if they would send me all of the evidence that was submitted
42:09to them.
42:10And I'm so pleased I kept pushing and pushing for that because the inquest didn't contain half of this.
42:20Fraudulent prescriptions like the above appear to have been administered from April 2017.
42:26That's the same month that the Charity Commission opened up an investigation into the charity.
42:35So rather than lying low, Gene seems to be committing another fraud.
42:42And it goes on for eight months.
42:47That it's more than just having this fake prescription and kind of forging his signature.
42:56They've gone to the extent of putting a telephone number on there as well.
43:02When Harrods Pharmacy tried initially to contact Professor Tatani,
43:07it put them through to someone called Priscilla, who they thought was his secretary.
43:13Which they do go on to explain, spoke to his secretary Priscilla, who appears to be the aunt of Meghan.
43:21Or, I imagine, Gene.
43:25The crazy thing is, that isn't even half of it.
43:31Gene was contacting the wholesalers that supply Harrods Pharmacy, pretending to be Harrods Pharmacy.
43:39And bulk ordering morphine.
43:42So that's separate to the actual prescription for that?
43:46Yeah.
43:47This is a whole other level.
43:51And this is quite clearly Gene doing this.
43:54This says it here.
43:55This is Gene.
43:57What on earth does she need wholesale morphine for?
44:01There was a crime reference number as well.
44:03So this was being investigated as a criminal case.
44:09Eventually, Gene was interviewed by the police about the forged prescription.
44:15But it wasn't until after Meghan died.
44:19I was later told by the police that she put the blame firmly on Meghan.
44:25That was the word.
44:26She placed the blame firmly on Meghan.
44:31Ultimately, there were no criminal charges.
44:34So nobody has been held accountable for that.
44:42I'm certainly not an expert, but from everything I'm reading and seeing,
44:46this is a case of Munchausen by proxy.
44:51She's been told that some of the symptoms that her daughter is feeling
44:55could be down to the fact that she's an opioid addict.
44:59And rather than trying to help her and support her, she gets her an even more insane amount of drugs.
45:08This is disturbing.
45:10It just looks like abuse.
45:17Munchausen by proxy is sinister.
45:21Being a parent who's been in a situation where you would literally do anything to save your child.
45:30To then actively think that somebody would deliberately inflict harm on their child.
45:41It goes against everything that being a parent should be.
45:48We didn't understand what it was to start with.
45:51But as time went on, we were trying to tell people that Meghan was vulnerable.
45:59And had people listened, the outcome could have been so much different.
46:05I believe that Meghan would be here now if there was a way of getting her away from her mother.
46:24There's a lot of stuff I've not talked about before.
46:29I knew stuff that was going on in their lives that, yeah, no one else knew.
46:37I've not looked at any of this in about ten years.
46:41This is a box of photos and letters from Meg that she sent me over the years.
46:48I think I was the one person that she knew she could rely on.
46:56So I think this must have been sort of when everything kind of got more difficult and she was having
47:05a really rough time at home.
47:10There was this other side to Jean that no one ever saw, no one ever heard about.
47:22I've been holding onto a lot for a decade plus.
47:28I need to talk about it.
47:29But in what I've seen, I imagine it's been pretty intense.
47:35Yeah.
47:35Yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:38Summer 2014, when Meg was 19, like Meg was at her lowest point that summer, like just mentally.
47:49She was really suicidal.
47:53She just wanted to end it all.
47:56Meg was meant to be in hospital for a big op at the end of August.
48:00She wasn't convinced she was going to make it.
48:03Start of that August, Meg ran away. She came to mine.
48:11Got a message one morning begging me to pick her up.
48:15Meg was like, I need to leave. I need to get away from my mum.
48:21She was absolutely terrified of being alone with Jean.
48:30That's from Meg.
48:32I really, really can't wait to get out of here.
48:34I'm so frightened all the time, sitting here shaking and trying to silently stop because she'll get angry if she
48:39hears.
48:41I need a break from this so much.
48:43Last days are supposed to be magical.
48:46Not frightening and awful.
48:51Do you know what she said to me?
48:53Oh, my life is going to be so good soon.
48:56I'm so broken.
48:58Oh, my life is going to be so good soon.
49:00Yeah.
49:01Who the fuck?
49:02Who says that to their daughter?
49:04Who says that to anyone who thinks she's about to die?
49:08I'm not going back home because it's basically suicide.
49:12And there are much, much better ways to end things than by her.
49:15I know that.
49:17I don't know any of this.
49:19Any of this.
49:25Meg stayed for a few days.
49:29It didn't land too well with Jean that she wasn't at home.
49:35Every now and then she would park up outside her house and just sit in her car outside.
49:43Sorry, so she would come to your house?
49:45Yeah.
49:46Sometimes she would just drive by and go again.
49:48Sometimes just park up for a bit and wait.
49:52That's fucking insane.
49:54Yeah.
49:55That stalker behavior.
49:55Yeah.
49:56Yeah.
49:57Controlling manipulation.
49:58Yeah.
49:59Yeah.
50:01That's fucking angry.
50:03Yeah.
50:03So she went up to London and she was then going to be staying with Alex.
50:08Beth was kind of like, she can't stay at mine anymore.
50:13And when Meg was at my house, the police came.
50:19Because Jean called the police and reported Meg as a missing person.
50:25I think Jean was kind of trying to make a point.
50:28Trying to kind of almost strong arm Meg into coming back home.
50:32Because also Meg was 19 at that point.
50:38Me and Beth had encouraged Meg that if she really felt like she wasn't safe, that this was the time
50:44to speak to the police about it.
50:46And Meg kind of downplayed why she didn't want to go home.
50:51She didn't use the word abuse.
50:53She didn't mention any kind of physical violence from her mum.
51:01She didn't think that police would be able to do anything.
51:06Meg hadn't been in school since she was 13.
51:09She didn't have qualifications.
51:11She wasn't able to work.
51:12She was completely dependent on her mum.
51:15So what happened with Meg after that?
51:18Because the consequences for her must have been...
51:22Yeah.
51:23So she goes back into living with Jean for the next four years.
51:30I spoke every now and then.
51:32But I didn't see her again.
51:35You didn't see her again?
51:36No.
51:38That was the last time I saw Meg.
51:42Why did you have guilt?
51:45You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.
51:49Honestly, Jean was manipulative and she was falling.
51:53Yeah.
51:53And the second you stand up, you were cut off.
51:57I am so grateful Meg had you.
52:00Yeah.
52:01And that was just...
52:05I just wonder how...
52:08things could have turned out differently.
52:13I don't think I'll ever know what the full picture was.
52:17What went on behind closed doors.
52:19Because Meg's not here for me to ask.
52:22But...
52:23hearing Meg's voice through her messages...
52:27that she was so...
52:30frightened...
52:30was really hard.
52:35I wish I'd known at the time.
52:38I wish I could have done something.
52:40She could have come and stayed with me.
52:42She could have...
52:43But...
52:44But we didn't know.
52:45I didn't know.
52:48And Jean...
52:49pushed us away.
52:50She pushed Beth away.
52:53To control Meg.
53:00After Meg passed away...
53:03I felt...
53:05for Jean.
53:07So I'd message Jean on Meg's birthday.
53:10Or on Jean's birthday.
53:12Or...
53:12when something reminded me of Meg.
53:15If you look through your messages with Jean...
53:19and if there's one that you feel...
53:20you're happy to read...
53:23I wouldn't...
53:24I wouldn't feel happy reading any of those messages.
53:27I don't think.
53:29I think I worried for a long time...
53:31that I...
53:31had done the wrong thing.
53:33Or like...
53:34complicit in...
53:35anything that could have...
53:37gone wrong.
53:38So then...
53:41if...
53:42if I still have questions in my mind...
53:44kind of rehashing...
53:46sympathy towards someone who...
53:48has the answers to those questions is...
53:51is tough.
53:53Because...
53:54it was kind of the one person at the time I felt I could...
53:56confide in and talk to.
53:59But if they were...
54:03part of...
54:04Meg becoming ill...
54:06the whole thing's just...
54:08even more sickening to me.
54:14What would you say to Jean now if you met her?
54:18Honestly, I don't know.
54:21You know...
54:22I don't know.
54:23She's lost her daughter.
54:25Which is...
54:26you know...
54:26devastating.
54:27And she has to live with that.
54:29And if she was part of that...
54:30then she has to live with the guilt.
54:34I haven't had...
54:35contact with Jean for...
54:37years now.
54:40But I did see her recently...
54:42at a family funeral.
54:44Oh.
54:45Yeah.
54:46That's her here.
54:48She was well put together.
54:49Well dressed.
54:50Hair done.
54:52She...
54:52stood at the right back.
54:54Do you know where she is?
54:57Or what she's doing?
54:58Yeah.
54:59Here she is.
55:00Online.
55:02As a...
55:03social media influencer for the over 60s.
55:07What, like a blogger or something?
55:10Yeah.
55:10She's reinvented herself...
55:12using a fake name.
55:15And there's no mention of Believe in Magic.
55:18She does mention at times about...
55:21caring for someone.
55:23And losing someone and caring for them.
55:26But that is the only mention of Meg.
55:33For a long time, I really wanted to...
55:35get some answers from Jean.
55:38But then I kind of realised...
55:40she was never going to tell me the truth.
55:47I feel like with everything that I have...
55:50all of this information that I've got together...
55:53I should be able to take this to the police.
55:56That...
55:57someone should listen and take it seriously.
56:00Do you think then you'll get some kind of closure on it?
56:04I don't know about closure, but...
56:07what I want and what I hope for...
56:10is that Meg gets that justice that she deserves.
56:16This is Megan and Megan is two years and four months old.
56:22Clever girl.
56:24She was a child when all of this started.
56:27This wasn't her fault.
56:29You're in the face!
56:30You got me!
56:31When I look back on it, I feel...
56:33really sorry for Meg.
56:36I feel really sorry for us...
56:38and, like, our teenage selves as well.
56:41But I just, yeah...
56:42I don't think I feel angry at her anymore.
56:47Nothing brought my children the joy, like Meg did, and my children adored her, and still adore her.
56:57And I hate to think that Meg was led to believe that she was poorly when she wasn't.
57:04It was a terrible waste.
57:09She didn't really have a voice.
57:13But what I can do is make people listen to Meg's story and be that voice for Megan.
57:23So that nobody has to go through even a fraction of what Meg went through.
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