A mother whose son was found dead at a mental health unit a week after being admitted has described his experience under the NHS as “hell on earth”. Melanie Leahy spent more than a decade campaigning for a public inquiry into NHS mental health services in Essex after years of failings are thought to have contributed to “significantly” more than 2,000 deaths between 2020 and 2023. In a harrowing statement to The Lampard Inquiry, Ms Leahy said her life has been “totally destroyed” by the loss of her only son, aged 20, who was found hanging in his room at The Linden Centre, in Chelmsford, in 2012.
Three days after being admitted, Matthew reported to his mother that he had been drugged and raped. He died four days later. The post-mortem examination showed traces of the “date rape” drug GBH in Matthew’s blood and four or five needle marks on his groin as well as bruising above and behind both his ankles.
Ms Leahy told the Inquiry: “This is a place I fought for a long time to get to – for all the wrong reasons.” Speaking in front of a framed photograph of her son, she said: “Not only have I been robbed of my son, I’ve also been robbed of my dreams. My world has become a much darker place without the light of Matthew.
How can it be possible I won’t see my son again? He cannot speak for himself or explain what happened. My son was dead within eight days of entering a so-called place of safety: The Linden Centre in Chelmsford.” Ms Leahy said her son was “kind, funny – he had dreams of becoming a comedian when he was younger – and excelled at school”.
He was a “fantastic skier” who had a natural talent for swimming and saved two ladies from drowning when he was a teenager. Ms Leahy said: “Matthew didn’t think twice. It was a pitch-dark winter’s evening and Matthew was walking home.
He heard the screams and he jumped into the water. He saved them both. Yet he himself wasn’t afforded the luxury of rescue when he so desperately needed it.
This makes me very angry and sad.” The family turned to “so-called professionals” when Matthew’s mental health deteriorated, eventually being detained at The Linden Centre with a diagnosis of a delusional disorder. Ms Leahy said: “Eight days in the care of the state, my son died.
I will never come to terms with that. The last eight days of his life, in a place he called ‘hell’, and now I truly believe it was hell on earth. Malnourished, over-medicated, scared, bleeding, bruised, raped, injected multiple times, ignored and frightened.
” She said there were “no records of any staff in those last days of his life offering him any comfort”. Ms Leahy told the inquiry that she had been advised not to visit her son on the ward “to give him time to settle”. Read Next 'My daughter had to die to find peace - an NHS mental health unit failed her' She added: “I will live with that guilt for the rest of my life – that I listened to so-called professionals and I was not there when my son needed me the most.
” The 2015 inquest into Matthew’s death heard of serious failings including the fact he had no care plan, but staff falsified one after his death and backdated it. Matthew’s paperwork was incomplete or missing and a key worker was not assigned to him. A jury concluded Matthew “was subject to a series of multiple failings and missed opportunities over a prolonged period of time by those entrusted with his care”.
The coroner reached a narrative conclusion. Ms Leahy said the last 12 years have left her “broken” with “no sense of normality”. She said her son’s death and its aftermath has left her with a lifelong distrust of the NHS.
“I have only seen a doctor once since Matthew’s death, and I dread the day I will have to see one again.” She said her son’s computer, which he took with him into the secure unit, has never been found. “The cause of Matthew’s death has been the focus of my life yet .
.. my life has been totally destroyed.
I miss my son so much, it hurts. I will never be normal again.” Further commemorative statements will be heard by the Inquiry on Wednesday and next week.
There will be further hearings conducted virtually in November. Evidential hearings will not begin until next year..
