Episode 9: Tillie's Story

Warning, this is a true crime podcast and is not suitable for all audiences. Please use discretion. This episode contains descriptions of suicide. Please take extra care while listening. This is episode 9 of a multi-part series. If you haven't listened to the other episodes, please go back to the beginning so you can follow along. Even though there are 2000 deaths currently being investigated as part of the Lampard inquiry, there are also other deaths that aren't being investigated. Yet the similarities to the ones that are of asked, deaths where they could have been saved, they could have been prevented by the mental health system in Essex, but they weren't. And the only reason they aren't being investigated is because they sit on the peripheral of the terms and conditions of the inquiry. The inquiry is investigating deaths that happened in mental health units under EPUT, or within three months post discharge from the services. But in today's case, one mother is left without answers. Without being able to be part of the inquiry, without knowing why her daughter had to die, because she is just out of that time frame. I'm Naomi Channel and this is investigating Essex, dying to be saved. I've had some upsetting news yesterday. I was gutted really. I found out that I was not being called as a core participant in the Lampard inquiry because Tilly just missed out of the three month time lapse limit. She just missed out, you know, she had eight years of being fouled, but she just missed out on the three month thing where I could go in and give evidence. It's just so unfair, it's like her life didn't matter. This is a voice note I received just a few weeks ago from Tilly and King's mother, Lisa Bates. There are many families like Tilly's who are on the peripheral and won't be included in the inquiry, despite years of treatment within Essex mental health services. That voice that you just heard was Tilly and King. She was Lisa's daughter and she was just 21 years old when she died. And like every other person we've talked about on this podcast, she was under the mental health services in Essex. Lisa's come to my house. She's strikingly beautiful, but there's a real obvious sadness in her eyes and a pain in her face. It's apparent straight away. As she arrives, she comes in and she's holding a folder and as she sits down at my kitchen table, she opens the folder and lays out three photos of Tilly. But these photos are not school photos. They're not happy family memories or holidays. All three of them show Tilly on life support. She's laying in a hospital bed, tubes everywhere. It's utterly horrific. She looks so young. She's a tiny girl with a flash of blonde hair and she's barely alive. What's shocking is that these photos were not taken from just one failed suicide attempt. They're each from different times. The lump in my throat is big for this one and I'm on the verge of difficulties. But I'm trying to hold it together as I look at these photos. Lisa's going to tell us Tilly's story and just an extra warning. It's deeply upsetting. So Tilly was a middle child. All girls and we are sort of a broken family. So it's broken. It was quite sad when it all broke out and it got quite, you know, as it normally does. Tilly and Tilly were a talk without words and we could know what each other was thinking. She was my rainbow baby as well. So that's quite interesting as well. She did cry for three years. She didn't like being apart from me. She was really hard work for three years. Cry constantly. But she was so adorable and so beautiful, so gentle. It just all fell into place after three years and she became this beautiful angelic looking little girl and my best friend growing up through her whole life on all her journeys in all the hospitals in all the places that she went to. She always made true friends that are still in contact with me now. And still checking on me now, which I think is amazing because there are some that have just, you know, life goes on. Life absolutely goes on. But when it happens to you, you think your world smashed and how can your life ever go forward. She did really well school. She did loads of things and she joined lots of clubs. She was really out going. Didn't really like the spulkside of things much. If she could be on the couch for, you know, that sort of thing, that's what she'd like doing and to get her out of her buggy was a nightmare. I think she was about seven before. She actually gave that up. But that was tears. She liked comfort. She liked to feel cosy. She liked to feel secure. And that's what it was so enduring about her. She just was so warming. So she went to primary school, had the transition into what I call big school, secondary school and that's when the problem started. 20% of adolescence have established mental health conditions by the age of 14. New changes and transitioning to senior schools can all play their part. Tilly and her family were based in Brentwood, Essex. It's a lovely town with just over 76,000 people living in it. But Tilly was struggling with the transitions of her larger school as well as the breakdown of her parents' relationship. From such a nice calm, quiet, lovely little school into this huge secondary school which was over much more ground and was just lost. She was just lost in there. She found that difficult and that was around about the time that her dad and I split as well. So there were lots of changes. And she started to lose herself a bit and got bullied a bit. And when we went in to see the important people at the school, they weren't as told or to grow up here. That wasn't the way he spoke to Tilly. She then became insular and not this little happy girl, lucky spirit anymore and became bullied and I moved out from that school into a different school. When we walked around the school, there was a much better feel. It felt nicer. And I don't know, but some people on this journey, you will pick up on things like that. You're talking about the feel and what you sense what you know is right in your gut and she went to that school and she started to have counselling because of the trauma of school the other school and she disclosed to the counsellor something which obviously they had to share with me and that was the first self-harming incident. I have 19 ages who have self-harmed both friends of mine from school and students I've taught in the past and if any of you listening has experience with self-harmed or knows someone that's self-harmed and the chances are it's very hard to digest but to be a mother of a child who is self-harming well that's something that feels so harrowing and I have no idea what I would do but this was the position that Lisa found herself in. I can't exactly go back but it's got to be 13, 12, 13, something like that what a smack in the face that was because it's like how did I not know? How did I not see this? Why didn't I recognise it? My go around in my eyes closed what's going on was so hard to watch someone that you absolutely adore plant theirself to pieces but no one really getting to the root of what was making these sort of behaviors happen. She got put under the cat cans so this is children's and that's where she was first introduced to Sopplicone. Sopplicone is a type of sleeping pill that can be taken for short-term treatment of severe insomnia. Essentially it helps you fall asleep quickly and stops you from waking up during the night. It's a powerful drug that's usually only administered for two to four weeks because your body can end up becoming dependent on it and sadly this is exactly what happened to Tilly. She became addicted to this and other prescription medications. I've questioned whether those medications made a reliant reading her diaries. It says that she manipulated it so that she could get a higher and to have a higher that certain age, that young age in the cans mental health authorities or whatever you want to call them. Did that make my daughter want to chase even more highs? Did she like the way it changed her? Was that ever spoken about in any of her therapy sessions? Was it ever spoken about why do you want this change? Why do you need it? Let's go deeper. It was never that. It was always less of another tablet in her later years because obviously she became rely on alcohol and she used the dark web. I never knew about the dark web till she passed and she used to get things delivered in show who bottles can never knew that till after she passed. All of these things are so freely available on this dark web and people are so quick to introduce these vulnerable people to the dark web. Tillie had been getting zannics and valium amongst other things from the dark web. He is a powerful prescription drugs and should not be taken recreationally. But Tillie was trying to mask a pain. When you go through this illness with your child you get this overwhelming lioness sort of you want to just absolutely protect from as high as you can to as low as you can. Lisa, I know you said in the end that Tillie was diagnosed with nine different mental health conditions. I know you refer to them as labels as well and I think that definitely seems to fit with the reality. Do you remember some of the different labels that she was given and do you remember what the first one was as well? Borderline personality disorder and then it was emerging borderline. But her journey with anorexia and bulimia was with her the whole time. Was with her from the age of 13-14 right the way through to when she died. But it was never monitored. It was never in fact they set her up to fail because they sent her to a hospital called Cassel. Cassel is an eating disorder unit that helps people with bulimia anorexia and other eating disorders. Tillie was really excited about going she felt like she was finally getting some proper help. But after two interviews they rejected her because they said she needed to stop drinking and taking drugs. She needed help with her predictions first and because of this knockback her mental health continued to spiral. She became a school with user and she spent a lot of time in the child as a lessons waltz, much ferd, the priori, in chance ferd and that one in Stafford which she was put into because there were no beds in Essex. So and the consultant stayed because I could only get there at weekends, stayed at the weekend and spoke to me and said this it will do I'm not harm the good, this hospital is no good for her which was quite shocking to hear and I still like to go and leave her because because we felt we felt we'd handed her over to the people that knew what to do and if we had we'd not done that we would have gotten trouble, we would have gotten trouble with authorities for neglect and things like that. So tillie went to a school which were for like school refuses and things like that. So she only did three subjects, mine of them was art and in the end I had to go and sit in the classroom with her at that place because she wouldn't go unless I was there. It's important to say here that despite all her mental health struggles her eating disorder and her addiction issues tillie still had hope for her life and she still wanted to live. She got a little part-time job in Super Drug and for a while that that was the making of her you know she she'd get up, she'd do a make-up, she'd go in, she made friends, she socialised so that was good because there were times when she couldn't get up and she'd be in bed and she wouldn't get up for days so that little glean was quite nice to see but then something would happen and set her back. She you know I was beginning to learn her triggers and you know what people might say or where she might have to go for appointments or things like that and it was no please don't do that, please it's just going to so she did that at Super Drug but before she passed she was going to start back at college. She'd reached out to an animal sanctuary not far from us because she wanted to do some volunteering and she wanted to go back to college to do veterinary so she was talking about the future. Tilly then turned 18 years old and she was transferred from camps the children's mental health services to the adult services but there were problems from the start. Tilly's sleep pattern was completely reversed by this point She would beat up all night and a sleep all day. She would still take the medication to help her sleep, but it would mean that she would be in a deep sleep, often finding it very difficult to wake up. But the appointments that she had with mental health services were often scheduled early in the morning, meaning Tilly would sleep through and wouldn't attend them. Lisa said Tilly explained the situation regarding her sleep to her care coordinator and would request later appointments that they often wouldn't materialise. As a result of this and lack of continuous care, Tilly started to experience serious mental health episodes, one of which would eventually lead her to being sectioned. Now times when they would do spot visit at home and we'd add a care coordinator sitting in our front room and say, I don't know what to do if you're Tilly. And then she gets accused of disengaging. She was having one of her episodes and she was for one bit of, she was smashing up a bedroom and we called the police, because obviously I had to think of her younger sister. And social services were questioning the younger sister's safety because of what was going on. So the police were involved, the two big burly policemen went into my little girl's bedroom and said, don't worry, so okay, this is when it's dark and it's night time. And they dragged her out, dragged Tilly out down the stairs, she kicked the banister off where she was trying to get away. They took her to A&E, which is not the right place for adults that are having episodes like that, there's so many triggering things in there that you're just making it ten times worse by taking them to somewhere like that. Anyway, they sectioned her and she, once she got checked out in A&E, she got taken onto them, the mental health unit and she stayed there for three days and one of the nurses called her a spoiled bitch because she was upset because she couldn't ever, I don't know whether it was a phone or something, but even that language, you know, Tilly was far from a spoiled bitch, Tilly was not a spoiled bitch and of course, why would a 21-year-old engage with that, why would she want to go and talk to someone when the staff can talk to them like that, you think they're in a place of safety and of care, but she was learning more and more in those places. She'd seen people kick their cell, their way out of the doors, she'd seen staff sleep, you know, she'd been told of things that were going on that shouldn't be going on. Lisa's talking about sexual assaults. We don't know if Tilly was directly involved in any assaults by the staff, but she knew people that had alleged that they had been sexually assaulted or in physical relationships with staff. But people who are sectioned are protected by the Sexual Offenses Act of 2003. It says if a staff member has sexual contact with the patients, then it's a crime and rightly so. To be sectioned means that the person's mind is effectively not working as it should. So they can't be sure that this person has the capacity to fully consent. It's not the first time we've heard claims of sexual assault within mental health units in Essex. In episode six, I relayed information from a Freedom of Information Act that detailed the number of sexual assaults from staff to service users. There were 55 incidents from 2017 to 2022 under EPIT's alone. It was around this time that Tilly started to lose her hair. She had bald patches and Lisa knew that this was a cry for help. She suspected it was another form of self-harm. Lisa kept asking for help, but she felt like they were getting nowhere fast. Tilly was discharged from being sectioned, and it was then that she started to make attempts to take her own life. There were times when I was really concerned that the hospital was near the train station. So, and someone did do it, and there were other attempts. She got taken away by the police once. She got taken to A&E, and they left it there. I didn't go that time. She ran out and ran back to Brentwood. These were not cries for help. There was another time she'd gone out and got come in about five o'clock in the morning, and I heard that I went downstairs could not wake her up. We drove her to and trying to keep her awake. As soon as we ran in to get someone, they ran out with a wheelchair and we'll do a throw to res us, and that's how she ended up. So I had to watch them incubate up, like put her in a juice coma. I had to stand and watch them do that to her, and I didn't know how she was going to wake up then. I didn't know whether she was going to wake up. That was on the Friday night, and on the Sunday night, she started to come round. And you know, that's what I'm saying. On the Monday, she's assessed. Yeah, you're fine to go home. How can that be fine? I just want to repeat what Lisa just said, as I imagine some of you might have thought you misheard. After Tilly had taken an overdose on the Friday, she woke up from her induced to coma on the Sunday. She was given a mental health assessment on the Monday, and that same day, she was discharged back home. She was given a prescription for a week's worth of medication, because Tilly told them that she was fine, but she wasn't fine. She was far from it. Lisa, it's so hard to digest that the fact that the mental health assessor took Tilly at face value when she said she was fine and wanted to go home. I mean, after being in a three day coma, where she'd also had previous suicide attempts. She had an extensive mental health record that clearly detailed, extremely serious mental health conditions, which of course, as we've spoken about previously, a result of these conditions is often that the patient will mask their true feelings or if false information so they can get back to a situation where they can either cause further harm to themselves, or as you previously mentioned, be able to manipulate the system so they can get more drugs and alcohol because they're in such a grip. I can only imagine how that must have been for you, and you must have felt like you had the full responsibility of keeping her safe. It's so clear that you're such an incredible mother, that the things you say the way you talk about Tilly, but I want to realise as well that you're a human being, until he had such complex needs, that the need really was for professional attention and care. It's too much for one person to do. This seems like such a ridiculous question, but how did you feel at that point? Should she discharge back into your care after such a serious suicide attempt? I was scared to live, I was scared, I was scared to, it's so hard to put into words. Obviously, she came round and the night that she came home, she wanted to go around a boyfriend and an old Irishman. do as protector and know you're staying here. She's 18. And society's treating her as an 18-year-old, not as an 18-year-old with all these illnesses. And then three weeks later, I can intensive care. How can an adult with nine labels convince a mental health worker that she's actually all right to go home? I won't, by the way, will give you a week's worth of medication in your hand to take now. Take home with you. How can that professional be allowed to walk around without any repercussion that have said it or so great for her to go home? Again, you didn't miss here. Three weeks after Tilly's suicide attempt where she ended up in an induced coma, she was back in intensive care after another suicide attempt. In January 2020, Tilly was given a place on a six-week course to deal with her drug and alcohol addiction. But Tilly was living with many more complex mental health conditions as well as an eating disorder. And with the previous suicide attempts and her trauma, it wasn't successful. In March 2020, Tilly's care coordinator came to her house to visit her and walked in to see Tilly in the depths of a manic mental health episode. You know, her care coordinator, so she died on Sunday, the 8th of March. So a week before that was a Sunday and the Friday before that, that Friday, her care coordinator came in her house and saw Tilly manic, saw that she weren't eating, saw that she was living on lollipops, said she appeared to be drinking, but then later said she didn't appear to be drinking. Well, by that Sunday, she was dead. In August 2019, seven months before Tilly died, she had suffered a trauma. Her care coordinator had said that she would be referring her to appropriate services for her trauma, but they never came. We're now going to talk about the day that Tilly died. I want to just add a little context here. Tilly had a male friend whose identity Lisa has decided to keep private. This male was a friend that Lisa had invited into her home, and she actually quite liked. On the day Tilly died, he had driven her to go and get alcohol. This was captured on a store's CCTV, and he had also been taken valium. It was suspected that this person also dealt some to Tilly that day too. She took the valium after she met with him, because prior to that, she'd been teaching her cousin how to play the guitar. I've seen a video from that night where she's encouraging him, and she sounds completely with it. She doesn't look like she's under the influence of any recreational drugs at all. This was important, and remember this for later. I just want everything to make sense, because Lisa's now going to talk about what happened next. In the next morning, that the next few minutes will be very difficult to listen to. So I opened the bedroom door. She was the wrong end of the bed, laying in a very strange position, and I did try waking up, but there was no response. But in that, because her cousin was staying, and he stayed downstairs. He was staying downstairs. For some mad moment, I thought, from the minute I got downstairs, I don't know how I got downstairs. I think I flew downstairs. Went into him. He come flying up the stairs, and he said, "Wing an ambulance." I started to try and punch her on her chest and do math to math. I was on the phone to the ambulance. So they said we had to move her. So we moved her. And then he was compressing and blowing. And I see a little tummy rise up, and I thought, "Yes, yes, yes." And then when he took his mouth away, it went, and she was gone. So from the last known phone call, at 20 to 5, to when I found out, 20 to 10, in that space is when she died. The ambulance came, and then the police came. Then we went and I had near her, because it was a crime scene. That was hard. I didn't want her out of my sight, because I knew where she was going to go to. I was in shock, because when we were eventually allowed in there, they'd put her, because she was on the floor at the end of her bedroom. So when I did actually get allowed in there, she was back in her bed. We've all had blankets over. The sun was shining through. I tucked her all in, because she had a fleecy. She liked cozy bedsets. I tell you where bedset. So I tucked her all in. And I cut some of her hair, and later all out, and just laid there, cuddling her, because I knew I wouldn't see her like this again. Seeing her leave the house in a body bag. My beautiful girl that's been fouled. And I know she'd been fouled, because at the inquest, they found 10 areas that they could have improved on. So that's 10 areas that they didn't, didn't work on with her. But it took her to die. For them to realise, oh, we could have done that differently, we could have done that differently. But again, my passion absolutely comes out. That was 20, 20. That was four years ago. So many more kids have died since then. So many more areas that they were all found in. Her coroner, Lincoln Brooks, asked the lady, who was the representative, who didn't even know Tilly, from the mental health services. Does anyone take any notice of these recommendations? Does anyone even read these recommendations? She tried to say that, yeah, there's training and all that. Well, if you look at Melanie's son, who died all that time ago, why haven't they learnt from that? Tilly was cremated. Lisa wears jewelry with some of her ashes in it. It's so striking. But it was a COVID funeral. So Tilly's friends and extended family couldn't be there. Lisa said it was haunting, just to see her flowers with her baby. But then Lisa had to start to prepare for her daughter's inquest. She received a serious incident report from E put. This happens when there is a death of a patient who's been under their services. Lisa went through the document and found 151 discrepancies. One of those in there were notes in the report stating that Tilly and Lisa had a, quote, toxic relationship. Lisa and those who knew her and Tilly fiercely disputed that. Lisa talks about how close they were. They were best friends. So to see that written down was extremely hurtful. The member of staff who wrote the serious incident report didn't know Tilly. They wrote it just using the notes that previous practitioners had made. The report was not amended despite the catalogue of errors that Lisa had pointed out. The reason Lisa says was because they were advising her to take the inquest slot that she'd been assigned in 2020, because COVID meant that the inquest queue was getting longer. And it could end up being three years until they would make it to the coroner's court again. And of course, the thought of waiting for answers for another three years was more than Lisa could bear. Tilly's death was ruled death by alcohol and drug Toxicity. it was not ruled as a suicide. Lisa had asked for help for Tilly many times over the eight years. For her addictions, for her eating disorder, her mental health issues, and in the last few months of her life, for help dealing with the trauma she had suffered, but it never materialized. In that time, there'd been countless self-harming. She'd been in two comas. She'd been assessed and deemed well enough to survive in the community. And in the end, her frail body could not survive the drugs and alcohol she was using, to help her block out her pain. At the inquest, the coroner identified ten areas where there had been failings by e-puts, and like in every other death we've mentioned so far in this podcast, recommendations were made. Some of the recommendations cited in Tilly's inquest had previously been heard and recommended at the inquests of other former e-put patients. Lisa soon came across Melanie Leighee and the hundreds of other families who were fighting to be heard after they too had lost a loved one. All of us parents didn't know each other. We all were on the journey on our own. We all felt alone. We didn't know that there was other people out there feeling the same way. We didn't know that there was other people noticing the same things, the same failings. We didn't know any of that. We all met afterwards in such tragic circumstances. I would like the government to actually stand up and listen and take notice to all of these parents that are all saying the same kind of story. Same outcome. It's the same outcome. You have all sorts of things go through your head and you think is it their way of getting rid of a generation? Because our generation, this future generation, if it's not made right, we're going to lose more and more and more. Lisa is an incredible mother and now she has a new vocation and when she told me what she now does for a living, I was astounded. I'll let her explain. I get people ready for their last journey. I make sure that they cared for their treated with respect and dignity and they are given everything that their family want them to have and do. So it's a privilege to be able to do what I do. I don't take it for granted and every day I'm grateful for having the opportunity to do what I do because like I've said before to many people you have met wife, special people bringing life into the world. Why can't you have someone special helping someone on their last journey? So I prepare them, get them ready, get them dressed, do their hair, do their makeup. Make sure they've got all their personal belongings that the family want them to take on their last journey. Make sure they look their best and give them the respect that they deserve. When the children come here and I talk to them I ask Tilly to go and get them and I say to Tilly they're probably scared so you look after them. If they're around elderly people, I ask them to look after them as well. I go in every morning and I say hello to them and every night I say night. And my heart feels what that family is feeling. My heart feels the sadness and the brokenness and I would want to look after them the way that I would want someone to look after my Tilly. There are many other families like Lisa's families whose loved ones died due to failings but because they weren't in the three-month window, they too will not be heard during the Lampard inquiry. Lisa has been fighting and fighting to be heard. As Tilly just missed out on being recognized as one of the deaths in the Lampard inquiry, Lisa is gutted. Whilst the inquiry won't hear Tilly's story, we now have and she mattered and she was loved. When I was putting this episode together, Lisa sent me some videos of Tilly. She is striking just like her mother. Most of the videos showed a young woman singing, dancing, playing the guitar and smiling. But there was one that stood out from the wrist and the audio from that is going to play us out. In the final episode, I'm going to tell you a real reason I've been the journalist doing this podcast. The reason that I wanted to help tell these stories and fight for change and tell you something I haven't told you yet. Because a lovely, wonderful woman that I know that was my friend was murdered and her killer was under the care of Essex mental health services. Episode 10 is out and available to listen to now. [Music] (gentle music)