December 13, 2024 • 41 mins
The Believe in Magic charity was set up by a 16-year-old girl and her mother. Megan and Jean’s charity helped grant wishes to sick children in a make-a-wish sort of way and some kids, including Megan, even got to meet One Direction members.
The charity was founded because Megan was diagnosed with a rare brain condition and a few years later a brain tumour.
A group of internet sleuths became suspicious after Jean tried to raise money for an emergency trip to see a doctor overseas.
So was Megan sick? And if she wasn’t, then how did she die? Journalist Jamie Bartlett has joined Mia for this episode of No Filter, as he got involved later down the track and what he discovered will send shivers.
You can hear the second half of Mia's conversation with Jamie here.
THE END BITS:
Jamie's podcast Believe in Magic is available here.
Follow Jamie on Twitter here.
Read Jamie's book The Missing Cryptoqueen here.
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Host: Mia Freedman. You can find Mia on Instagram here and get her newsletter here.
Producers: Emeline Gazilas & Cassie Merritt
Executive Producer: Kimberley Braddish
Audio Producer: Madeline Joannou
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Maya acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on. Hey, No Filter listeners, it's Miya here,
and today we're revisiting one of my favorite episodes of
No Filter from twenty twenty three, about a woman who
claimed to be incredibly ill, got to meet the members
(00:30):
of One Direction, and then the most incredible twist, just
when everybody thought she was faking it and maybe she was.
In this episode, journalist Jamie Bartlett joins me to explore
the mystery. Was Megan actually ill and if not, what
really happened and how was her mother involved? For Mamma,
(00:54):
I'm Maya Friedman and you're listening to No Filter charity celebrity,
a mystery, illness, One Direction and a sudden death.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Was never meant to end like that. That was a
part of the story, but that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
The extraordinary story you're about to hear almost sounds made up.
It begins with a British girl called Megan Bari, who
was just thirteen when she developed a condition called idiopathic
into cranial hypertension, which involves high pressure around the brain,
and then a couple of years later, Meghan developed a
brain tumor, and it was as a direct result of
(01:30):
her experiences twenty four operations, lots of time in hospitals,
and countless interactions with other sick kids that Megan decided
in twenty twelve, when she was just seventeen, to set
up a charity with her mum to help dreams come
true for other kids who were battling chronic or terminal
illnesses like her. They called it Believe in Magic. Now,
(01:53):
you were very ill.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
When you decided to set up the charity, So can
you tell us about why you wanted to do it.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, well, I've had twenty four operations in the last
few years. Wow, And I've been in and out of
hospital and seeing so many other very poorly children, and
I just sort of realized how much the other children
are going through and just wanted to do something to
sort of give them the magical experiences back and to
be able to be children again.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And it worked in a sort of a Make a
Wish way, granting hundreds of sick kids wishes from lavish
parties to sending families on holiday or letting them meet
their celebrities. Superhero. Meghan's own dream was to connect with
One Direction, the boy band sensation of the twenty Tents,
and through her charity and her own personal story of suffering,
(02:38):
she did just that to such an extent that One
Direction began tweeting the support of Believe in Magic, attending
the charities galas and wearing Believe in Magic wristbands when
they performed on stage.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
You have the boys.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
They're wearing your wrist bands in forty countries, So now
your wristbands are main.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Many companies with kill that opportunity.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I mean, that's actually ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Prime Minister David Cameron even gave Meghan an award for
her work.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Meg has shown such extraordinary courage to put aside her
own illness and focus on grant the dreams of others.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But when Meghan and Jean started fundraising online to pay
for urgent treatment that they said Meghan needed to get
in the US to save her life, some people started
to get a bit suspicious. It was giving bell gibbs
and vibes. Remember the Australian cookbook author who claimed she
had a brain humor, except that she didn't. You may
think you can guess what happened next, because there've been
(03:32):
quite a lot of well known stories about people who
claim to be sick in order to get attention or
scam money. And indeed, internet sleuths did find proof that
Meghan and her mother Jean were being deceptive, But just
when it looked like a scam was unraveling, Meghan suddenly
died and that's when things became really complicated. There was
(03:55):
an inquestion to Meghan's death, and soon after journalist Jamie
Bartler got involved. He spent months trying to unravel what
dark things went on with the charity and its founders,
and what he found out was bizarre. Jamie's been released
in a gripping seven episode podcast, also called Believe in Magic.
So was Megan ever really sick? And if she wasn't,
(04:19):
then how did she die? I wanted to start with
twenty twelve, BBC did a show about inspiring teenagers and
one of them is seventeen year old Meghan Barrie.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Now we have another inspirational young lady in the studio
with us. She has these little bands for her charity,
and indeed that Alix is now wearing that I've been
wearing all day I wore one on stage. Hello Meg,
how are you?
Speaker 6 (04:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (04:47):
Good?
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Thank you had an amazing day.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
What was she being celebrated for, Meghan Bari.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, this inspirational teenager. She had become quite an influential
person within the cancer community. She had started up a
charity called Believe in Magic, and the idea was that
she's very poorly herself, but she'd sort of in spite
of that, had started a charity to grant wishes to
desperately ill children. There's other charities that do similar things,
(05:15):
you know, trips to Disney, meeting celebrities, sort of in
some cases, sort of dying wishes if you like. As
she puts it, to bring a little bit of joy
into people's lives. And because she had suffered herself so much,
you know, it inspired a lot of people. It moved
a lot of people. So the BBC had her on
for their Teen Awards show that they did every year
(05:36):
back then, and she'd become very popular with One Direction
as well. One Direction started wearing her charity wristbands on stage.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
How do you persuade these people to get involved?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
I think we've been so lucky, I said the charity
last year and it's run my me and my mum.
But I think people really like that. Because I'm seventeen
and because I've been poorly myself, it means they kind
of get it more than if it's just I don't
really know. I think they get the story behind it.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
A very very inspiring young teenager.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
How did she look back then? Because she claimed to
have had twenty four operations in the last couple of years.
She said she'd had a brain t tumor, and she
talked about how her insight into what it was like
to be in hospital and so ill made her want
to help other kids. Did she look unwell?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Based on what other people have told me who knew
her well at the time, she didn't look well. She
was slightly overweightd she definitely took lots of medication. A
lot of people saw her taking a lot of medication.
And the thing is about a lot of complex conditions.
You can't always tell just by looking at someone how
(06:48):
ill or how unwell they really are. So yes, if
you've got a broken leg, it's kind of obvious, but
when you're talking often about brain conditions, it's less obvious.
It's not always a visible condition. So that's a tricky one,
and that's sort of part of the story. I suppose
in a way, how far you ever really know how
unwell someone really is just by looking at them? You don't.
(07:10):
You don't.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
The One Direction point that you made was really interesting.
She was a big fan and they became really involved,
like Harry Starles's mum climbed Mount Kilimanjaro raise money for
Believe in Magic. How did that connection come about?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I didn't really know that much about One Direction before
I started this. I just you know, pop band. To me,
they were just sort of X Factor contestants that did
really well, a good bunch of lads, and they did
a lot of work for charity, you know, and a
lot of popular bands they do a lot of work
for charity. They will do after gigs, they will often
meet poorly children One Direction And again I didn't really
(07:50):
know because I wasn't a directioner. But back in twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, that sort of time, I mean, amongst teenage
girls in the UK and around world, they were absolutely huge.
I mean there was this sort of obsession about them.
They were like the Beatles, Yeah, but it was like
Beatlemania really was. Actually when we were making the program.
We talked about it being kind of similar to Beatlemania,
(08:12):
sort of screaming teens, you know, absolutely obsessed and genuinely
feeling like they were in love with the band and
that they were going to marry members of the band.
And they turned up as well at this interesting point
where social media was making them far more approachable. They
seemed a lot more normal. They would share much of
their life online, so he got behind the scenes in
a way that he didn't with the Beatles. So Megan
(08:35):
was one of thousands and thousands of young teens who
just were obsessed with one direction, and she'd managed to
meet the band backstage after one of their gigs in London.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Was that because she was sick.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Some of the details aren't exactly clear, but yeah, we
think it was through one of the charities that would
put these events on for poorly children. And at the
time she had been diagnosed with idiopathic intracranial hypertension, which
is a sort of without going into the medical details
of it, a sort of build up of fluid on
the brain which can be really painful. Doctor Steele don't
(09:11):
fully understand it. So we think she got to meet
the band after one of their gigs because she had
been selected because of her idiopathic intracranial hypertension, and she
was brilliant with celebrities. She was really really good at
sort of charming celebrities and talking to them, and she
managed to somehow get their attention and get them to
(09:32):
support her charity too, which she decided to set up.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
Hi It's Lourie from one direction. We've been working with
Believe in Magic Now for a few years and we
think Meg and the team are absolutely incredible. So to
want a chance to see us in London on the
twenty sixth September, donate below Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Who did she run the charity with Because she was
a teenager and she'd been unwell, running a charity is
a big deal. Who was helping her?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
That was her mother, Jane, So Jean and Meghan had
an incredibly tight close relationship. Megan had been taken out
of school when she was I think it was thirteen,
so she was homeschooled for quite a long period of time.
Jean had had children from a previous marriage that had
all grown up and moved away, and they were more
(10:19):
like best friends really than mother and daughter, and Gene
as the adult, was the one that really set the
admin and was one of the official directors of the
charity until Megan was old enough to be that. But
it was the two of them and they were called
the fairy Godmothers and they would put on these events
together and everyone who went would say, these two are
(10:39):
just a whirlwind, a ball of energy. They do everything themselves.
They run this entire charity. They put on events and
trips to Disney and Hamley's toy store in London where
they get children all morning to be able to enter
the store before it opens and play with the toys,
and all this stuffy It was just them too. They
did all the admin, They did everything, all the fundraising.
(11:01):
It was the genat Meg show.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
I Believe In Magic was started by model to Meg
and when she was just sixteen. Actually she'd been very
poorly herself for that four years then and was in
and out of many hospitals in London, mostly Great Ormond Street,
and Meg wanted to do something to make a difference
to their lives so shen't believe in magic, which.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Became They would work eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours a
day just to put on these events four poorly children,
and they really did, and they helped a lot of people.
And I spoke to a lot of people who attended
believe in Magic events who said, I'll never repay them
what they did, They what they did for my child,
the events they put on, how much they helped us,
it was amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So the charity was real. I mean One Direction raffled
off backstage passes and raised four hundred thousand pounds. Harry
Style's mum climbed met Kilum and Jarrow. A lot of
people donated. They did actually do things, because all the
things you described cost a lot of money to execute.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
They really did. Yeah, there were all sorts of events
they railed up on. They put on this huge fundraiser
at the Natural History Museum in central London. This princes
and princesses born all were a couple of the One
Direction members turned up as well. They would have trips
to Disney, trips to Kensington Palace, trips to Buckingham Palace.
(12:19):
They would often send gifts to poorly children that were
in hospital. They'd suddenly receive a package. And one person
told me how her daughter was a big fan of
the children's TV personality called mister Bumble, and Meghan had
managed to persuade mister Bumble to write this sort of
personalized note to her daughter to get well soon and
(12:40):
keep fighting. And they weren't putting on events, they really
were and they did a lot of events. Remember, Meghan
won an award which Prime Minister David Cameron said of
Meghan like fighting through her adversity to put these events
on to help poorly children. She won the special Award.
So they were a sort of highly respected part of
the cancer community, with the child cancer community in particular.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, that sounds like there were almost celebrities in that area,
in that sector.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
To some extent.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, And they did huge amounts of really good work.
In twenty fifteen, Jane announced on Facebook I think, where
she usually communicated with the followers and the supporters of
the charity, that Meghan's condition had deteriorated and that she'd
needs specialist treatment in the US to survive. And she
said that they needed to raise one hundred and twenty
(13:31):
pounds in two weeks, which is around a quarter of
million dollars Australian, and she asked their fans to donate.
Was that a change from what had been happening in
the years before that in terms of asking people for
money for the charity. Now they were asking it for themselves.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, it was, and Meghan had done a small fundraiser
for her own treatment a couple of years previous to that,
but it was nowhere near that size, not that amount
of money, And I think that was the big difference here,
moved from we're raising money for the charity to put
on these events to we are raising money for Meghan's treatment.
(14:13):
Meghan has put on so much and helped so many
other people. Now she needs your help in a return.
She now has her condition has seriously deteriorated. We need
urgent proton beam radiotherapy over in the US. Can't get
it in the UK at the moment. Because of how
much money they'd raised for the charity and how much
(14:34):
work they've done, that target was reached within forty eight hours.
They had raised all of that money, so Meghan was
able to go to the US to go to Florida
for treatment, and that was a bit of a difference. Yeah,
But I think in the cancer community it's I suppose
maybe not so uncommon that people suddenly do need urgent treatment,
and if you're part of that world, it maybe wouldn't
(14:56):
have seemed as strange that it had gone from the
charity to Meghan, because those sorts of things do happen.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
This is when Joe Ashcroft comes into the story. You
spoke to Joe why was she so interested in Megan
and believe in Magic?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
At this point, Joe's son had gone through something very similar.
Joe's son had been diagnosed with neuroblastoma a few years earlier,
and she'd actually been to a Believe in Magic event.
She had been forced to raise two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds for her son's treatment in America, a similar
sort of thing. So she really took a natural interest
(15:35):
in anyone raising money for treatment in America because she'd
been through it and she knew what it took and
how hard it was.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
And as you say, that's quite common within this world
where people can't afford to travel to get the treatment
that they need.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, that's it. And the other thing as well, is
that you're faced with this horrible decision where they'll say
we don't offer the treatment. There's some experimental stuff going
on in America, but you're going to have to raise
a quarter of a million pounds half a million dollars
in a few weeks somehow, just to increase that chance
that they would survive by five percent. But your whole
(16:12):
life is put on hold, and you do everything. And
she talks a lot about all she wants to do
is stay at home and cry and sort of be
with her son. But instead she's got to go out
there and do marathons and raffles and drag her poor
son around from event to event, trying to tug on
people's heart strings. And she said it was awful because
(16:33):
she wants privacy, and she said she'll do anything to
raise the money. So she's dragging her son around from
event to event. She said, straight off the chemotherapy, just
to try to get more money.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And she did it.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
She did it, and she raised the money and the
treatment worked. So it's incredible. I mean, just so much
admiration for her. And I've got two small children myself,
and well, you know, just even thinking of it's a
really difficult thing to work on, this whole project, to
be honest, because of that, you're dealing with childhood, the illness.
It's awful.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Given that she raised twice as much money as Meghan
and Jane had to travel to the US. What raised
her suspicions about what they were doing.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
She says, the lack of detail. It was very vague.
The fundraisers were vague, They were a bit unclear. They
didn't give specifics. The hospitals weren't mentioned, the doctors weren't mentioned.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
To me, it just all sounded very very strange. And
as I'm reading, I'm trying to see where she's been treated,
who are doctor raised, where the hospital is, and there
was no information.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And so she started, I'd just like to know a
bit more about this. So she'd start emailing saying, what
hospital are you actually going to? What doctor is it?
Could I get in touch with I'd like to know
more of you got any scans? So can I see
a bit more on the specifics of what exactly this
money's being spent on, because she says she was asked
that often and she could reel off every specific treatment
(18:01):
at what hotel and what doctor and here's the letter.
Because she said, these people are giving me money, I
will answer any question they have. I'll give them everything
they want, and she felt like she wasn't getting those answers,
and so she thought, something just seems a bit off
about this. It just seems a bit slightly suspicious. And
the more she dug, the more she asked, the less
(18:22):
she seemed to understand about it.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Hi, I'd love to send Meghan something, just like she
sends all the poorly children. Which hospitals do I send
it to? To which I got reply, thanks so much.
But Meghan's at three different hospitals at the moment, so
it's very, very difficult.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And then she found that Meghan and Gene had done
another fundraiser for Meghan a couple of years prior, and
that was also a bit odd. It mentioned going to
Disney World. It said, we're going to go to America
to help Megan get better, and while we're there, we're
also going to go to Disney. Can you help donate?
And she thought, given what I've been through, I wouldn't
(19:05):
spend a penny on Disney. Everything is going to much
of treatment. Why are you raising money if you've got
enough to go to Disney as well? And so she
just thought. Her big concern was she'd heard stories about
people within the cancer community sort of faking illnesses and
pretending to have things they didn't to raise money, and
she just thought, I'm going to get to the bottom
(19:25):
of this. I think something's up. I don't want anyone
in this community being ripped off.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
At that time, Jeane was in the US and she
was posting increasingly alarming and really detailed updates. What Joe
had said that there was not much detail around the
hospital when you described the updates she was posting. There
was a lot of very specific medical language and medical
(19:51):
terms and about this procedure and all these different symptoms
and escalating complications that Meg had. Where were they actually
while all of this was happening, And how did the
sleuths find out? The Sluths being the group of cancer
parents that Joe enlisted to help her find out what
was going on.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, this story is just so on so many levels.
It's just surprised me at every turn what actually happens
here with this. The basics of it is that Joe
and a couple of other people who had also been
through the same thing, she had children with neuroblastoma, raising
money for treatment in America. So they were really tight
in this community getting more and more suspicious. The language
(20:32):
when Gene was posting from America about Megan's health deteriorating,
and it just seemed often far too exaggerated, you know,
like where people would have two or three infections, Meghan
has twenty. Stuff that just seemed a little bit suspicious,
a little bit not quite believable, a little bit exaggerated,
if I can say that. So she starts thinking, well,
(20:54):
how are we going to get to the bottom of this, Like,
how are we going to figure out what's really going on?
Because we're not convinced that Meghan is as ill as
she claims to be, and we're not convinced she's getting
this treatment in America. So what they decide to do
send an email to Gene the little tracker code in
it which gives you the location of where the email's
being opened from, and they discover when Gene replies that
(21:18):
actually it was opened in a Disney resort, not in
a hospital, not next to a hospital, but in the
Kadani Disney resort. We were able to access some receipts
that showed that Megan and Jean had spent tens of
thousands of dollars in a luxury Disney suite over several months.
(21:39):
While publicly online they were claiming that Meghan was in
the hospital barely making it through the night.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Busted, she's there, and she was saying that she was
spending the night holding Meghan's hand, willing her through the night.
There's no way that anybody with a child who is
that sick would be in a Disney resort. So rang
the kadane there and then without really thinking it through,
(22:06):
and they put me through to the room and Gene answered.
So I said, Meghan, plain and she said sorry. I said,
it is Meghan there. Please, She said, who's calling? She's
asleep at the moment, ring thank you, and I put
the phone down. So then I go back to the
group and I said Megan, Megan's in that room.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Then they did something else which we need photographic proof.
No one's going to believe us because Meghan and Gene
are believe in magic. These are household names. People love
these guys and understandably, so they've helped a lot of people.
No one's going to believe us. Who are we with
which a handful of random parents that look bitter and upset.
So they also worked out that Megan and Gene were
(22:52):
coming back to the UK from America. Jean had been
posting a lot on Facebook, Meghan's getting a bit better.
We're going to try and make it home, but because
of her brain condition, we can't fly. So they thought, oh,
they always travel on the Queen Mary Second luxury ocean liner.
They looked at the times and they worked out that
there was one leaving New York around that time. So
they thought, I bet they're on that, and it's coming
(23:14):
to Southampton in a week's time. So they hired a
private detective. This is where the story gets so crazy.
So this group of very very respectable parents with children
who'd had cancer hired a private detective to go down
to Southampton when the ship docked to see firstly if
the pair were on the boat, and to watch them
(23:34):
as they came off to take photographs. Because from all
the things that Gene had been posting, Megan was you know,
she had an oxygen tank, she'd probably be in a wheelchair.
They had bags of medical equipment. They were expecting an
extremely unwell child to be sort of pushed off on
a wheelchair from the Queen Mary the Second. But yes,
they were on the ship, but she certainly didn't seem
(23:58):
particularly unwell. Meghan and Gene disembarked the Queen Mary Second,
snapped by the private detective looking like a couple of
happy tourists wandering off, both of them pushing these huge bags,
and Joe Ashcroft thought, that's it. We've got them. We
can show they've been lying. They've been saying that they're
barely making it through the night, and here they are
(24:21):
looking like a pair of happy tourists coming off the
Queen Mary, the second luxury ocean liner. So that is
where the story you think is over because you think,
right there we go exposed.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, because you would also think that it's like the
gotcha moment, right they've got the evidence. It's a ClearCase
or it seems to be a case of financial fraud.
They're claiming on Facebook that she's so unwell. The pictures
contradict it. We've got the evidence. They were in Disney
World at the time that they said they were in hospital,
but it didn't turn out that way. Like they tried
(24:56):
to go public, didn't they, And what was the reaction.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
It's called malingering. There's a very specific term for that
in sort of the literature about essentially faking or exaggerating
illness for financial gain, material gain. I wouldn't say it's common,
but it happens more often than people think. And I
know a lot of people now that have had experience
of going on to Facebook or going on to go
(25:21):
fund me or just giving and finding people claiming to
have various elements and raising money for it. You've got
no proof of that. And there was a really famous
example of this in Australia, wasn't that. I'm sure you're
going to come onto that at some point.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I'm sure I am. I was going to say to you,
were you familiar with the case of Bell Gibson, because
you were saying that you were surprised at how successful
your podcast has been in Australia.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Is that why? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
That suddenly it's all adding up. So they go public
and they say, look, Megan might be unwell. Often in
these cases, people are unwell, but they will exaggerate greatly
their condition. So she might be unwell, but she doesn't
need this treatment. In America, she doesn't have a brain
tumor likes being claimed, she doesn't need this specialized treatment.
They've been in Disney World this whole time, ripping you off,
(26:08):
and look, we've photographs of them coming off the Queen
Mary second looking perfectly healthy, and they put this all
in a Facebook group. They called it the Truth about
Gene and Meg, saying this is who we are. We
are concerned parents, and this is what we've discovered. And
they contacted authorities trying to alert them, saying someone's got
to stop this, and yeah, the reaction was not what
(26:31):
they expected. It was how dare you say this? How
could you? I know, Meghan's not well, believe in Magic's
helped my life and my kids and my family, and
you're jealous and bitter and angry and your trolls and
you should be thrown off the internet and all this stuff.
And the authorities, as far as Joe Ashcroft was concerned,
(26:52):
weren't really doing much either. She couldn't get answers out
of them. They didn't seem to be shutting the charity down.
Nothing seemed to be happening. So I just think they
were on the verge of giving up, thinking, well, what
we're supposed to do?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Did Meghan and Jane respond? They released a statement, didn't they?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Ways they would respond and they would post about these
trolls that are targeting them, and often without naming them specifically.
They would say it's hard enough going through this, it's
hard enough looking after Megan, it's hard enough having to
deal with Meghan's conditions, and now we've got these nasty trolls,
these bitter, angry people who are attacking us online. And
(27:32):
I think at one point Gene may have even said
it's because Joanne Ashcroft wasn't invited to believe in magic events.
She's jealous, She's just bitter and she's angry. Megan also
posted a video. This wasn't public, but it went to
Joe saying.
Speaker 8 (27:51):
Joanna Acecraft, it's meg It it's a good time to
say hello. As you can see, we obviously have far
more important things to be dealing with, disgusting exultations that
you're throwing at one of.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
The worst ones of whole lives.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
I cannot, for the life of me understand how you've
done what you've done through and very good. I have
every hope in the world that you will see how
wrong you've been and apologize, and I'm very sorry to
see that.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
If you don't, you'll.
Speaker 8 (28:21):
Be hearing from us very sory too. You have completely
devastated death and roke.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Good on look, I'm ill stop targeting us, so both
publicly and privately. Yeah, they were basically shut down, if
you like.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Which is not what they were expecting at all.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
No, but then I suppose they didn't really know what
to expect. This is one of the things about many
stories now you see on exposing different types of social problems,
is it's often amateurs doing this stuff. It's not the journalists,
it's the amateur solut it's the online investigators digging around
becoming obsessed with a story because these guys were spending.
(29:01):
Like Joe says, it was you know, she became consumed
by this. You know, she would just constantly all day
on her phone, like what's the latest, what we've who
do we know? What can we discover? Let's go through
some old posts. Is there any clues there? So they
didn't know what they were doing. They don't know how
to expose these things. They didn't know what the reaction
would be. So I think they imagined they'd all be
praised and thank you so much for your hard work.
(29:23):
But that isn't how the world works. You know. Meghan
and Gene had a lot of loyal supporters.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
And then unbelievably in twenty eighteen, something just completely shocking happened.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yes, yes, it was shocking, and it was actually whenever
I tell the story to anyone, this is the point
which they're like, what Joe and Ashcross is sitting around
one day and she gets her phone call or a
text message and it basically says, Meghan's dead, Meghan's died.
(29:57):
And she just thought, what the Megan wasn't ill, Meghan
wasn't seriously unwell, that how could that be possible? And
Meghan had indeed passed away hospital in London at the
National Institute for Neurology and Neuroscience, but a brain specialist
hospital essentially, and.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
She was twenty three years old.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, Jean had posted it on Facebook because what had
happened was the charity had actually been there was an
investigation was opened by the Commission into Believe in Magic,
so that was ongoing. That had started, and actually Joe
and Ashcroft, even though she thought no one was doing anything,
the charity Commission had started looking into like, how's the
(30:40):
money being spent? All this money you're getting for the charity,
is it all going for charitable purposes? They started looking
into it, sort of accounting were they filing the proper accounts.
But it wasn't really about Megan's illness. It was how
was the charity being run, So that was going on.
Things sort of quietened down. Actually, when Joe and the
(31:02):
others had put this Facebook group together and posted what
they knew, the events slowed down as well. There wasn't
as much activity anymore. So it just felt like maybe
they had achieved something. Maybe Megan and Jean had stopped
what they were doing quietly sort of gone back into
the background. And then this happens. Twenty three years old.
She dies at the Neuroscience Hospital in London, and Joe's
(31:28):
left thinking have I got everything wrong? Did she really
have a brain tumor all this time? Have we just
completely mistaken? And a lot of the supporters of Believe
in Magic started posting online saying she was trolled to death.
These trolls targeting are abusing a like, trying to expose
her the stress and the strain while she really wasn't unwell.
(31:52):
What were they doing And it's just not what anyone
expected to happen, because I think Joe and the others
just thought this was a simple case of someone pretending
to have a brain tumor, that didn't raising money to
go on holiday, not that she'd ever die. Was never
meant to end like that. That wasn't part of the story.
(32:13):
But that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
After the break. Jamie tells us what happened after Megan's death,
because just when you think you know how this story
is going to end, it twists. What was the reaction publicly?
I mean, I assume everybody came after the sleuths as
you say, and said that she was trolled to death.
(32:40):
There was a post mortem and a second post mortem.
Her funeral was canceled at the last minute and then rescheduled.
But you didn't become interested in this case until twenty
twenty one. What sparked your interest.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I'd done a podcast called The Missing Crypto Queen with
the BBC about a big Ponzi scheme essentially, And what
happens when you do those sorts of big stories is
other people then approach you and say would you like
to look at this story because you seem to you know,
you sort of know a little bit about how to
investigate these things. And a BBC journalist basically got in touch,
(33:17):
called Ruth Mayer, she's the producer. You hear throughout. She'd
seen an article in the Times of London and it
just basically was about the Charity Commission investigating Believe in
Magic and about the sort of possibility that Megan wasn't
as ill as she claimed to be. Underneath it just
had this really cryptic line that the truth is a
lot darker, the story is a lot stranger than this,
(33:39):
This isn't the whole story at all, and that obviously,
for a journalist, you think, oh right, I mean this already,
this story seems very very unusual and worthy of really
digging into properly, and there's more to it already there's
someone saying that something else is going on here. And
then she gets in touch with me and says, do
you want to take a look? Do you want to
think if we can get to the bottom of what's
(34:00):
really happened here? Because at that point in twenty twenty one,
no one still really knew what had happened.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
But Jamie didn't that look very straightforward. I mean, the
charity Commission had looked into the funding and the spending
of the money, but a girl claimed she had a
brain tumor for a long period of time and then
died in a neurological hospital of a brain tumor, according
to her mother, and had a funeral. So unless all
(34:30):
of that was made up outside the cancer community, did
you feel apprehensive about digging around? I mean, what were
you trying to do besmirch the reputation of a dead
girl that maybe she smuggled some money. I mean, when
you thought it was just that story, what was it
that made you think there was something else there?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
No, I didn't want to bespirch the reputation of anyone, obviously,
and that was the thing that was really weighing on
my mind when I was looking at it, thinking do
I even really want to get into this because the
young girls died, they'll be a grieving parent. I'm going
to annoy someone, upset someone. Don't really like doing that
sort of thing. But no, it wasn't straightforward. It still
wasn't clear what had happened. And when we spoke to
(35:10):
Joe before we even started on this properly, she was
absolutely adamant that Megan did not have a brain tumor.
She did not have a brain tum she did not
die of a brain tumor. There was no brain tumor.
Not only had that money had been misappropriated and misspent,
but that's one thing, But there was still the mystery
(35:31):
of how really did she die?
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Then?
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Is there something about this story that we don't really understand?
And it's something about it didn't add up. There was
still something that hadn't been uncovered. How did Meghan die?
How did it get to that? And if we still
don't really know and no one really knows, shouldn't we
try and understand this? Shouldn't we try and figure this out?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Medical records, of course, are private even after someone dies,
and if Jane didn't want to release those medical records
as Meghan's mother, you couldn't really get them. Why was
there a coronial in quest? Actually?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
So the medical records and doctors won't talk to journalists
about patients even after they've passed away. Really, but if
there's a coroner's inquest, doctors, yeah, they have to. They're
basically compelled to. And while you don't necessarily get given
medical records, they will talk in detail about the case.
And coroner's inquests are held when someone dies in usually
(36:31):
in sort of mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Rijitnanov itself suggests that it wasn't just a brain t
tumor complication exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Just the fact there was a coroner's inquest held into
her death. It's sort of suspicious or unusual or unexplained circumstances.
And there are lots of coroner's inquests held every year,
and a lot of them people don't really ever hear about.
I mean, I'd never been to a coroner's inquest. But
the thing is coroner's inquest was held six months or
so after she passed away. Coroner's inquests are public courts.
(37:03):
You can go as a journalist and sit in on
a coroner's inquest. It's considered to be an open court.
But once an inquest has taken place, you can't usually
then access the records afterwards, the transcripts or whatever. So
we applied to the coroner's court and said, can you
give us a recording of the you know, of the
event itself, because this is where we thought we're going
(37:26):
to get the answers, because doctors would be testifying about
what they knew, what they saw. Meghan had spent so
much time in and out of hospitals. She'd been to
Great Ormond Street she was a patient at Great Ormond Street.
She'd been seeing by countless specialists, and her GP would
be there. The pathologists who'd done the post mortems would
also be testifying. So we thought we will finally get
(37:49):
an answer whether Megan really had a brain tumor or not,
and what she really died of and what really happened.
But we didn't know whether we'd get granted access because
it's pretty unusual, frankly for a journalist to be given
transcripts or recordings. I mean, they can't actually give you
a recording of the coroner's inquest after it's happened, and
you're not allowed to take recordings in court either. But
(38:11):
the coroner said, because of this is such an unusual case,
we're going to let you come into the courtroom and
I am going to play you a live recording or
play it for you live once through. So it says
if you're sitting in the room, you're not allowed to
record it, but you can take notes, so you will
be able to hear what happened at that inquest. So
we got to attend the kind of weirdly four years afterwards,
(38:36):
got to attend the coroner's inquest into Megan's.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Death, Jamie, what was that like.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I'd never been to anything like that before, and I
didn't understand at the time why there were all these
restrictions on it. I remember saying to Ruth, why can't
they just send us the transcript? What's the problem? Why
can't we I mean, what's the big deal? Which is
probably a bit insensitive of me, but I was just
(39:04):
sewing to the story that I wasn't really steeing the
wood for the trees, because then I sat through it
and it was grim. It felt intrusive, it was horrible.
Hated it. It was so detailed, it was so medical.
It was you know, the pathologists and the anetheist who
tried to keep Megan alive for hours and hours now
(39:26):
trying to keep her heart beating and stuff. You're listening
in minute by minute detail to the last hours of
a person's life. It's awful. It's awful. I can't it's haunting.
It's terrible, and I hated it. I hate and I
came out of it thinking, I understand now why they
don't just give these things out to journalists. It's private.
(39:48):
It felt so private to Megan and to Jane, to
her family that I really felt like I shouldn't have
been there really at all.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
When you were listening to all of those medical details,
did you get a sense from what you heard of
how she died and what she died from?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
You do? So you've got to sort of try to
shut out the emotion and listen. And you know, there's
a lot of technical medical language in there, but basically
there was no mention at all anywhere of a brain tumor.
The post mortems found that her brain was morphologically normal,
that she died of cardiac arrhythmia, which is an irregular
(40:30):
beating of the heart, most likely caused by fatty liver disease,
likely the result of her obesity, which for a twenty
three year old to die of cardiac arrhythmia caused by
fatty liver disease. We spoke to other specialists about this,
I mean, it is one in a million. It's so unusual,
(40:50):
it's so unusual. And then we heard all these other
very worrying details as well. Megan and Gene had been
doctor hopping, had forged a prescription to get morphine. Some
of the doctors got together, fearing that there was something
strange going on here, so they tried to get a
session with lots of different doctors so they could start
(41:11):
managing the case. Megan and Ging just wouldn't turn up.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Maya acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on. Hey, No Filter listeners, it's Miya here,
and today we're revisiting one of my favorite episodes of
No Filter from twenty twenty three, about a woman who
claimed to be incredibly ill, got to meet the members
(00:30):
of One Direction, and then the most incredible twist, just
when everybody thought she was faking it and maybe she was.
In this episode, journalist Jamie Bartlett joins me to explore
the mystery. Was Megan actually ill and if not, what
really happened and how was her mother involved? For Mamma,
(00:54):
I'm Maya Friedman and you're listening to No Filter charity celebrity,
a mystery, illness, One Direction and a sudden death.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Was never meant to end like that. That was a
part of the story, but that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
The extraordinary story you're about to hear almost sounds made up.
It begins with a British girl called Megan Bari, who
was just thirteen when she developed a condition called idiopathic
into cranial hypertension, which involves high pressure around the brain,
and then a couple of years later, Meghan developed a
brain tumor, and it was as a direct result of
(01:30):
her experiences twenty four operations, lots of time in hospitals,
and countless interactions with other sick kids that Megan decided
in twenty twelve, when she was just seventeen, to set
up a charity with her mum to help dreams come
true for other kids who were battling chronic or terminal
illnesses like her. They called it Believe in Magic. Now,
(01:53):
you were very ill.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
When you decided to set up the charity, So can
you tell us about why you wanted to do it.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, well, I've had twenty four operations in the last
few years. Wow, And I've been in and out of
hospital and seeing so many other very poorly children, and
I just sort of realized how much the other children
are going through and just wanted to do something to
sort of give them the magical experiences back and to
be able to be children again.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And it worked in a sort of a Make a
Wish way, granting hundreds of sick kids wishes from lavish
parties to sending families on holiday or letting them meet
their celebrities. Superhero. Meghan's own dream was to connect with
One Direction, the boy band sensation of the twenty Tents,
and through her charity and her own personal story of suffering,
(02:38):
she did just that to such an extent that One
Direction began tweeting the support of Believe in Magic, attending
the charities galas and wearing Believe in Magic wristbands when
they performed on stage.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
You have the boys.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
They're wearing your wrist bands in forty countries, So now
your wristbands are main.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Many companies with kill that opportunity.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I mean, that's actually ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Prime Minister David Cameron even gave Meghan an award for
her work.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Meg has shown such extraordinary courage to put aside her
own illness and focus on grant the dreams of others.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But when Meghan and Jean started fundraising online to pay
for urgent treatment that they said Meghan needed to get
in the US to save her life, some people started
to get a bit suspicious. It was giving bell gibbs
and vibes. Remember the Australian cookbook author who claimed she
had a brain humor, except that she didn't. You may
think you can guess what happened next, because there've been
(03:32):
quite a lot of well known stories about people who
claim to be sick in order to get attention or
scam money. And indeed, internet sleuths did find proof that
Meghan and her mother Jean were being deceptive, But just
when it looked like a scam was unraveling, Meghan suddenly
died and that's when things became really complicated. There was
(03:55):
an inquestion to Meghan's death, and soon after journalist Jamie
Bartler got involved. He spent months trying to unravel what
dark things went on with the charity and its founders,
and what he found out was bizarre. Jamie's been released
in a gripping seven episode podcast, also called Believe in Magic.
So was Megan ever really sick? And if she wasn't,
(04:19):
then how did she die? I wanted to start with
twenty twelve, BBC did a show about inspiring teenagers and
one of them is seventeen year old Meghan Barrie.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Now we have another inspirational young lady in the studio
with us. She has these little bands for her charity,
and indeed that Alix is now wearing that I've been
wearing all day I wore one on stage. Hello Meg,
how are you?
Speaker 6 (04:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (04:47):
Good?
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Thank you had an amazing day.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
What was she being celebrated for, Meghan Bari.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, this inspirational teenager. She had become quite an influential
person within the cancer community. She had started up a
charity called Believe in Magic, and the idea was that
she's very poorly herself, but she'd sort of in spite
of that, had started a charity to grant wishes to
desperately ill children. There's other charities that do similar things,
(05:15):
you know, trips to Disney, meeting celebrities, sort of in
some cases, sort of dying wishes if you like. As
she puts it, to bring a little bit of joy
into people's lives. And because she had suffered herself so much,
you know, it inspired a lot of people. It moved
a lot of people. So the BBC had her on
for their Teen Awards show that they did every year
(05:36):
back then, and she'd become very popular with One Direction
as well. One Direction started wearing her charity wristbands on stage.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
How do you persuade these people to get involved?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
I think we've been so lucky, I said the charity
last year and it's run my me and my mum.
But I think people really like that. Because I'm seventeen
and because I've been poorly myself, it means they kind
of get it more than if it's just I don't
really know. I think they get the story behind it.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
A very very inspiring young teenager.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
How did she look back then? Because she claimed to
have had twenty four operations in the last couple of years.
She said she'd had a brain t tumor, and she
talked about how her insight into what it was like
to be in hospital and so ill made her want
to help other kids. Did she look unwell?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Based on what other people have told me who knew
her well at the time, she didn't look well. She
was slightly overweightd she definitely took lots of medication. A
lot of people saw her taking a lot of medication.
And the thing is about a lot of complex conditions.
You can't always tell just by looking at someone how
(06:48):
ill or how unwell they really are. So yes, if
you've got a broken leg, it's kind of obvious, but
when you're talking often about brain conditions, it's less obvious.
It's not always a visible condition. So that's a tricky one,
and that's sort of part of the story. I suppose
in a way, how far you ever really know how
unwell someone really is just by looking at them? You don't.
(07:10):
You don't.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
The One Direction point that you made was really interesting.
She was a big fan and they became really involved,
like Harry Starles's mum climbed Mount Kilimanjaro raise money for
Believe in Magic. How did that connection come about?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I didn't really know that much about One Direction before
I started this. I just you know, pop band. To me,
they were just sort of X Factor contestants that did
really well, a good bunch of lads, and they did
a lot of work for charity, you know, and a
lot of popular bands they do a lot of work
for charity. They will do after gigs, they will often
meet poorly children One Direction And again I didn't really
(07:50):
know because I wasn't a directioner. But back in twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, that sort of time, I mean, amongst teenage
girls in the UK and around world, they were absolutely huge.
I mean there was this sort of obsession about them.
They were like the Beatles, Yeah, but it was like
Beatlemania really was. Actually when we were making the program.
We talked about it being kind of similar to Beatlemania,
(08:12):
sort of screaming teens, you know, absolutely obsessed and genuinely
feeling like they were in love with the band and
that they were going to marry members of the band.
And they turned up as well at this interesting point
where social media was making them far more approachable. They
seemed a lot more normal. They would share much of
their life online, so he got behind the scenes in
a way that he didn't with the Beatles. So Megan
(08:35):
was one of thousands and thousands of young teens who
just were obsessed with one direction, and she'd managed to
meet the band backstage after one of their gigs in London.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Was that because she was sick.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Some of the details aren't exactly clear, but yeah, we
think it was through one of the charities that would
put these events on for poorly children. And at the
time she had been diagnosed with idiopathic intracranial hypertension, which
is a sort of without going into the medical details
of it, a sort of build up of fluid on
the brain which can be really painful. Doctor Steele don't
(09:11):
fully understand it. So we think she got to meet
the band after one of their gigs because she had
been selected because of her idiopathic intracranial hypertension, and she
was brilliant with celebrities. She was really really good at
sort of charming celebrities and talking to them, and she
managed to somehow get their attention and get them to
(09:32):
support her charity too, which she decided to set up.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
Hi It's Lourie from one direction. We've been working with
Believe in Magic Now for a few years and we
think Meg and the team are absolutely incredible. So to
want a chance to see us in London on the
twenty sixth September, donate below Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Who did she run the charity with Because she was
a teenager and she'd been unwell, running a charity is
a big deal. Who was helping her?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
That was her mother, Jane, So Jean and Meghan had
an incredibly tight close relationship. Megan had been taken out
of school when she was I think it was thirteen,
so she was homeschooled for quite a long period of time.
Jean had had children from a previous marriage that had
all grown up and moved away, and they were more
(10:19):
like best friends really than mother and daughter, and Gene
as the adult, was the one that really set the
admin and was one of the official directors of the
charity until Megan was old enough to be that. But
it was the two of them and they were called
the fairy Godmothers and they would put on these events
together and everyone who went would say, these two are
(10:39):
just a whirlwind, a ball of energy. They do everything themselves.
They run this entire charity. They put on events and
trips to Disney and Hamley's toy store in London where
they get children all morning to be able to enter
the store before it opens and play with the toys,
and all this stuffy It was just them too. They
did all the admin, They did everything, all the fundraising.
(11:01):
It was the genat Meg show.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
I Believe In Magic was started by model to Meg
and when she was just sixteen. Actually she'd been very
poorly herself for that four years then and was in
and out of many hospitals in London, mostly Great Ormond Street,
and Meg wanted to do something to make a difference
to their lives so shen't believe in magic, which.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Became They would work eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours a
day just to put on these events four poorly children,
and they really did, and they helped a lot of people.
And I spoke to a lot of people who attended
believe in Magic events who said, I'll never repay them
what they did, They what they did for my child,
the events they put on, how much they helped us,
it was amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So the charity was real. I mean One Direction raffled
off backstage passes and raised four hundred thousand pounds. Harry
Style's mum climbed met Kilum and Jarrow. A lot of
people donated. They did actually do things, because all the
things you described cost a lot of money to execute.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
They really did. Yeah, there were all sorts of events
they railed up on. They put on this huge fundraiser
at the Natural History Museum in central London. This princes
and princesses born all were a couple of the One
Direction members turned up as well. They would have trips
to Disney, trips to Kensington Palace, trips to Buckingham Palace.
(12:19):
They would often send gifts to poorly children that were
in hospital. They'd suddenly receive a package. And one person
told me how her daughter was a big fan of
the children's TV personality called mister Bumble, and Meghan had
managed to persuade mister Bumble to write this sort of
personalized note to her daughter to get well soon and
(12:40):
keep fighting. And they weren't putting on events, they really
were and they did a lot of events. Remember, Meghan
won an award which Prime Minister David Cameron said of
Meghan like fighting through her adversity to put these events
on to help poorly children. She won the special Award.
So they were a sort of highly respected part of
the cancer community, with the child cancer community in particular.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, that sounds like there were almost celebrities in that area,
in that sector.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
To some extent.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, And they did huge amounts of really good work.
In twenty fifteen, Jane announced on Facebook I think, where
she usually communicated with the followers and the supporters of
the charity, that Meghan's condition had deteriorated and that she'd
needs specialist treatment in the US to survive. And she
said that they needed to raise one hundred and twenty
(13:31):
pounds in two weeks, which is around a quarter of
million dollars Australian, and she asked their fans to donate.
Was that a change from what had been happening in
the years before that in terms of asking people for
money for the charity. Now they were asking it for themselves.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, it was, and Meghan had done a small fundraiser
for her own treatment a couple of years previous to that,
but it was nowhere near that size, not that amount
of money, And I think that was the big difference here,
moved from we're raising money for the charity to put
on these events to we are raising money for Meghan's treatment.
(14:13):
Meghan has put on so much and helped so many
other people. Now she needs your help in a return.
She now has her condition has seriously deteriorated. We need
urgent proton beam radiotherapy over in the US. Can't get
it in the UK at the moment. Because of how
much money they'd raised for the charity and how much
(14:34):
work they've done, that target was reached within forty eight hours.
They had raised all of that money, so Meghan was
able to go to the US to go to Florida
for treatment, and that was a bit of a difference. Yeah,
But I think in the cancer community it's I suppose
maybe not so uncommon that people suddenly do need urgent treatment,
and if you're part of that world, it maybe wouldn't
(14:56):
have seemed as strange that it had gone from the
charity to Meghan, because those sorts of things do happen.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
This is when Joe Ashcroft comes into the story. You
spoke to Joe why was she so interested in Megan
and believe in Magic?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
At this point, Joe's son had gone through something very similar.
Joe's son had been diagnosed with neuroblastoma a few years earlier,
and she'd actually been to a Believe in Magic event.
She had been forced to raise two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds for her son's treatment in America, a similar
sort of thing. So she really took a natural interest
(15:35):
in anyone raising money for treatment in America because she'd
been through it and she knew what it took and
how hard it was.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
And as you say, that's quite common within this world
where people can't afford to travel to get the treatment
that they need.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, that's it. And the other thing as well, is
that you're faced with this horrible decision where they'll say
we don't offer the treatment. There's some experimental stuff going
on in America, but you're going to have to raise
a quarter of a million pounds half a million dollars
in a few weeks somehow, just to increase that chance
that they would survive by five percent. But your whole
(16:12):
life is put on hold, and you do everything. And
she talks a lot about all she wants to do
is stay at home and cry and sort of be
with her son. But instead she's got to go out
there and do marathons and raffles and drag her poor
son around from event to event, trying to tug on
people's heart strings. And she said it was awful because
(16:33):
she wants privacy, and she said she'll do anything to
raise the money. So she's dragging her son around from
event to event. She said, straight off the chemotherapy, just
to try to get more money.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And she did it.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
She did it, and she raised the money and the
treatment worked. So it's incredible. I mean, just so much
admiration for her. And I've got two small children myself,
and well, you know, just even thinking of it's a
really difficult thing to work on, this whole project, to
be honest, because of that, you're dealing with childhood, the illness.
It's awful.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Given that she raised twice as much money as Meghan
and Jane had to travel to the US. What raised
her suspicions about what they were doing.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
She says, the lack of detail. It was very vague.
The fundraisers were vague, They were a bit unclear. They
didn't give specifics. The hospitals weren't mentioned, the doctors weren't mentioned.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
To me, it just all sounded very very strange. And
as I'm reading, I'm trying to see where she's been treated,
who are doctor raised, where the hospital is, and there
was no information.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And so she started, I'd just like to know a
bit more about this. So she'd start emailing saying, what
hospital are you actually going to? What doctor is it?
Could I get in touch with I'd like to know
more of you got any scans? So can I see
a bit more on the specifics of what exactly this
money's being spent on, because she says she was asked
that often and she could reel off every specific treatment
(18:01):
at what hotel and what doctor and here's the letter.
Because she said, these people are giving me money, I
will answer any question they have. I'll give them everything
they want, and she felt like she wasn't getting those answers,
and so she thought, something just seems a bit off
about this. It just seems a bit slightly suspicious. And
the more she dug, the more she asked, the less
(18:22):
she seemed to understand about it.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Hi, I'd love to send Meghan something, just like she
sends all the poorly children. Which hospitals do I send
it to? To which I got reply, thanks so much.
But Meghan's at three different hospitals at the moment, so
it's very, very difficult.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And then she found that Meghan and Gene had done
another fundraiser for Meghan a couple of years prior, and
that was also a bit odd. It mentioned going to
Disney World. It said, we're going to go to America
to help Megan get better, and while we're there, we're
also going to go to Disney. Can you help donate?
And she thought, given what I've been through, I wouldn't
(19:05):
spend a penny on Disney. Everything is going to much
of treatment. Why are you raising money if you've got
enough to go to Disney as well? And so she
just thought. Her big concern was she'd heard stories about
people within the cancer community sort of faking illnesses and
pretending to have things they didn't to raise money, and
she just thought, I'm going to get to the bottom
(19:25):
of this. I think something's up. I don't want anyone
in this community being ripped off.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
At that time, Jeane was in the US and she
was posting increasingly alarming and really detailed updates. What Joe
had said that there was not much detail around the
hospital when you described the updates she was posting. There
was a lot of very specific medical language and medical
(19:51):
terms and about this procedure and all these different symptoms
and escalating complications that Meg had. Where were they actually
while all of this was happening, And how did the
sleuths find out? The Sluths being the group of cancer
parents that Joe enlisted to help her find out what
was going on.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, this story is just so on so many levels.
It's just surprised me at every turn what actually happens
here with this. The basics of it is that Joe
and a couple of other people who had also been
through the same thing, she had children with neuroblastoma, raising
money for treatment in America. So they were really tight
in this community getting more and more suspicious. The language
(20:32):
when Gene was posting from America about Megan's health deteriorating,
and it just seemed often far too exaggerated, you know,
like where people would have two or three infections, Meghan
has twenty. Stuff that just seemed a little bit suspicious,
a little bit not quite believable, a little bit exaggerated,
if I can say that. So she starts thinking, well,
(20:54):
how are we going to get to the bottom of this, Like,
how are we going to figure out what's really going on?
Because we're not convinced that Meghan is as ill as
she claims to be, and we're not convinced she's getting
this treatment in America. So what they decide to do
send an email to Gene the little tracker code in
it which gives you the location of where the email's
being opened from, and they discover when Gene replies that
(21:18):
actually it was opened in a Disney resort, not in
a hospital, not next to a hospital, but in the
Kadani Disney resort. We were able to access some receipts
that showed that Megan and Jean had spent tens of
thousands of dollars in a luxury Disney suite over several months.
(21:39):
While publicly online they were claiming that Meghan was in
the hospital barely making it through the night.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Busted, she's there, and she was saying that she was
spending the night holding Meghan's hand, willing her through the night.
There's no way that anybody with a child who is
that sick would be in a Disney resort. So rang
the kadane there and then without really thinking it through,
(22:06):
and they put me through to the room and Gene answered.
So I said, Meghan, plain and she said sorry. I said,
it is Meghan there. Please, She said, who's calling? She's
asleep at the moment, ring thank you, and I put
the phone down. So then I go back to the
group and I said Megan, Megan's in that room.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Then they did something else which we need photographic proof.
No one's going to believe us because Meghan and Gene
are believe in magic. These are household names. People love
these guys and understandably, so they've helped a lot of people.
No one's going to believe us. Who are we with
which a handful of random parents that look bitter and upset.
So they also worked out that Megan and Gene were
(22:52):
coming back to the UK from America. Jean had been
posting a lot on Facebook, Meghan's getting a bit better.
We're going to try and make it home, but because
of her brain condition, we can't fly. So they thought, oh,
they always travel on the Queen Mary Second luxury ocean liner.
They looked at the times and they worked out that
there was one leaving New York around that time. So
they thought, I bet they're on that, and it's coming
(23:14):
to Southampton in a week's time. So they hired a
private detective. This is where the story gets so crazy.
So this group of very very respectable parents with children
who'd had cancer hired a private detective to go down
to Southampton when the ship docked to see firstly if
the pair were on the boat, and to watch them
(23:34):
as they came off to take photographs. Because from all
the things that Gene had been posting, Megan was you know,
she had an oxygen tank, she'd probably be in a wheelchair.
They had bags of medical equipment. They were expecting an
extremely unwell child to be sort of pushed off on
a wheelchair from the Queen Mary the Second. But yes,
they were on the ship, but she certainly didn't seem
(23:58):
particularly unwell. Meghan and Gene disembarked the Queen Mary Second,
snapped by the private detective looking like a couple of
happy tourists wandering off, both of them pushing these huge bags,
and Joe Ashcroft thought, that's it. We've got them. We
can show they've been lying. They've been saying that they're
barely making it through the night, and here they are
(24:21):
looking like a pair of happy tourists coming off the
Queen Mary, the second luxury ocean liner. So that is
where the story you think is over because you think,
right there we go exposed.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, because you would also think that it's like the
gotcha moment, right they've got the evidence. It's a ClearCase
or it seems to be a case of financial fraud.
They're claiming on Facebook that she's so unwell. The pictures
contradict it. We've got the evidence. They were in Disney
World at the time that they said they were in hospital,
but it didn't turn out that way. Like they tried
(24:56):
to go public, didn't they, And what was the reaction.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
It's called malingering. There's a very specific term for that
in sort of the literature about essentially faking or exaggerating
illness for financial gain, material gain. I wouldn't say it's common,
but it happens more often than people think. And I
know a lot of people now that have had experience
of going on to Facebook or going on to go
(25:21):
fund me or just giving and finding people claiming to
have various elements and raising money for it. You've got
no proof of that. And there was a really famous
example of this in Australia, wasn't that. I'm sure you're
going to come onto that at some point.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I'm sure I am. I was going to say to you,
were you familiar with the case of Bell Gibson, because
you were saying that you were surprised at how successful
your podcast has been in Australia.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Is that why? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
That suddenly it's all adding up. So they go public
and they say, look, Megan might be unwell. Often in
these cases, people are unwell, but they will exaggerate greatly
their condition. So she might be unwell, but she doesn't
need this treatment. In America, she doesn't have a brain
tumor likes being claimed, she doesn't need this specialized treatment.
They've been in Disney World this whole time, ripping you off,
(26:08):
and look, we've photographs of them coming off the Queen
Mary second looking perfectly healthy, and they put this all
in a Facebook group. They called it the Truth about
Gene and Meg, saying this is who we are. We
are concerned parents, and this is what we've discovered. And
they contacted authorities trying to alert them, saying someone's got
to stop this, and yeah, the reaction was not what
(26:31):
they expected. It was how dare you say this? How
could you? I know, Meghan's not well, believe in Magic's
helped my life and my kids and my family, and
you're jealous and bitter and angry and your trolls and
you should be thrown off the internet and all this stuff.
And the authorities, as far as Joe Ashcroft was concerned,
(26:52):
weren't really doing much either. She couldn't get answers out
of them. They didn't seem to be shutting the charity down.
Nothing seemed to be happening. So I just think they
were on the verge of giving up, thinking, well, what
we're supposed to do?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Did Meghan and Jane respond? They released a statement, didn't they?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Ways they would respond and they would post about these
trolls that are targeting them, and often without naming them specifically.
They would say it's hard enough going through this, it's
hard enough looking after Megan, it's hard enough having to
deal with Meghan's conditions, and now we've got these nasty trolls,
these bitter, angry people who are attacking us online. And
(27:32):
I think at one point Gene may have even said
it's because Joanne Ashcroft wasn't invited to believe in magic events.
She's jealous, She's just bitter and she's angry. Megan also
posted a video. This wasn't public, but it went to
Joe saying.
Speaker 8 (27:51):
Joanna Acecraft, it's meg It it's a good time to
say hello. As you can see, we obviously have far
more important things to be dealing with, disgusting exultations that
you're throwing at one of.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
The worst ones of whole lives.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
I cannot, for the life of me understand how you've
done what you've done through and very good. I have
every hope in the world that you will see how
wrong you've been and apologize, and I'm very sorry to
see that.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
If you don't, you'll.
Speaker 8 (28:21):
Be hearing from us very sory too. You have completely
devastated death and roke.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Good on look, I'm ill stop targeting us, so both
publicly and privately. Yeah, they were basically shut down, if
you like.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Which is not what they were expecting at all.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
No, but then I suppose they didn't really know what
to expect. This is one of the things about many
stories now you see on exposing different types of social problems,
is it's often amateurs doing this stuff. It's not the journalists,
it's the amateur solut it's the online investigators digging around
becoming obsessed with a story because these guys were spending.
(29:01):
Like Joe says, it was you know, she became consumed
by this. You know, she would just constantly all day
on her phone, like what's the latest, what we've who
do we know? What can we discover? Let's go through
some old posts. Is there any clues there? So they
didn't know what they were doing. They don't know how
to expose these things. They didn't know what the reaction
would be. So I think they imagined they'd all be
praised and thank you so much for your hard work.
(29:23):
But that isn't how the world works. You know. Meghan
and Gene had a lot of loyal supporters.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
And then unbelievably in twenty eighteen, something just completely shocking happened.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yes, yes, it was shocking, and it was actually whenever
I tell the story to anyone, this is the point
which they're like, what Joe and Ashcross is sitting around
one day and she gets her phone call or a
text message and it basically says, Meghan's dead, Meghan's died.
(29:57):
And she just thought, what the Megan wasn't ill, Meghan
wasn't seriously unwell, that how could that be possible? And
Meghan had indeed passed away hospital in London at the
National Institute for Neurology and Neuroscience, but a brain specialist
hospital essentially, and.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
She was twenty three years old.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, Jean had posted it on Facebook because what had
happened was the charity had actually been there was an
investigation was opened by the Commission into Believe in Magic,
so that was ongoing. That had started, and actually Joe
and Ashcroft, even though she thought no one was doing anything,
the charity Commission had started looking into like, how's the
(30:40):
money being spent? All this money you're getting for the charity,
is it all going for charitable purposes? They started looking
into it, sort of accounting were they filing the proper accounts.
But it wasn't really about Megan's illness. It was how
was the charity being run, So that was going on.
Things sort of quietened down. Actually, when Joe and the
(31:02):
others had put this Facebook group together and posted what
they knew, the events slowed down as well. There wasn't
as much activity anymore. So it just felt like maybe
they had achieved something. Maybe Megan and Jean had stopped
what they were doing quietly sort of gone back into
the background. And then this happens. Twenty three years old.
She dies at the Neuroscience Hospital in London, and Joe's
(31:28):
left thinking have I got everything wrong? Did she really
have a brain tumor all this time? Have we just
completely mistaken? And a lot of the supporters of Believe
in Magic started posting online saying she was trolled to death.
These trolls targeting are abusing a like, trying to expose
her the stress and the strain while she really wasn't unwell.
(31:52):
What were they doing And it's just not what anyone
expected to happen, because I think Joe and the others
just thought this was a simple case of someone pretending
to have a brain tumor, that didn't raising money to
go on holiday, not that she'd ever die. Was never
meant to end like that. That wasn't part of the story.
(32:13):
But that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
After the break. Jamie tells us what happened after Megan's death,
because just when you think you know how this story
is going to end, it twists. What was the reaction publicly?
I mean, I assume everybody came after the sleuths as
you say, and said that she was trolled to death.
(32:40):
There was a post mortem and a second post mortem.
Her funeral was canceled at the last minute and then rescheduled.
But you didn't become interested in this case until twenty
twenty one. What sparked your interest.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I'd done a podcast called The Missing Crypto Queen with
the BBC about a big Ponzi scheme essentially, And what
happens when you do those sorts of big stories is
other people then approach you and say would you like
to look at this story because you seem to you know,
you sort of know a little bit about how to
investigate these things. And a BBC journalist basically got in touch,
(33:17):
called Ruth Mayer, she's the producer. You hear throughout. She'd
seen an article in the Times of London and it
just basically was about the Charity Commission investigating Believe in
Magic and about the sort of possibility that Megan wasn't
as ill as she claimed to be. Underneath it just
had this really cryptic line that the truth is a
lot darker, the story is a lot stranger than this,
(33:39):
This isn't the whole story at all, and that obviously,
for a journalist, you think, oh right, I mean this already,
this story seems very very unusual and worthy of really
digging into properly, and there's more to it already there's
someone saying that something else is going on here. And
then she gets in touch with me and says, do
you want to take a look? Do you want to
think if we can get to the bottom of what's
(34:00):
really happened here? Because at that point in twenty twenty one,
no one still really knew what had happened.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
But Jamie didn't that look very straightforward. I mean, the
charity Commission had looked into the funding and the spending
of the money, but a girl claimed she had a
brain tumor for a long period of time and then
died in a neurological hospital of a brain tumor, according
to her mother, and had a funeral. So unless all
(34:30):
of that was made up outside the cancer community, did
you feel apprehensive about digging around? I mean, what were
you trying to do besmirch the reputation of a dead
girl that maybe she smuggled some money. I mean, when
you thought it was just that story, what was it
that made you think there was something else there?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
No, I didn't want to bespirch the reputation of anyone, obviously,
and that was the thing that was really weighing on
my mind when I was looking at it, thinking do
I even really want to get into this because the
young girls died, they'll be a grieving parent. I'm going
to annoy someone, upset someone. Don't really like doing that
sort of thing. But no, it wasn't straightforward. It still
wasn't clear what had happened. And when we spoke to
(35:10):
Joe before we even started on this properly, she was
absolutely adamant that Megan did not have a brain tumor.
She did not have a brain tum she did not
die of a brain tumor. There was no brain tumor.
Not only had that money had been misappropriated and misspent,
but that's one thing, But there was still the mystery
(35:31):
of how really did she die?
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Then?
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Is there something about this story that we don't really understand?
And it's something about it didn't add up. There was
still something that hadn't been uncovered. How did Meghan die?
How did it get to that? And if we still
don't really know and no one really knows, shouldn't we
try and understand this? Shouldn't we try and figure this out?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Medical records, of course, are private even after someone dies,
and if Jane didn't want to release those medical records
as Meghan's mother, you couldn't really get them. Why was
there a coronial in quest? Actually?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
So the medical records and doctors won't talk to journalists
about patients even after they've passed away. Really, but if
there's a coroner's inquest, doctors, yeah, they have to. They're
basically compelled to. And while you don't necessarily get given
medical records, they will talk in detail about the case.
And coroner's inquests are held when someone dies in usually
(36:31):
in sort of mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Rijitnanov itself suggests that it wasn't just a brain t
tumor complication exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Just the fact there was a coroner's inquest held into
her death. It's sort of suspicious or unusual or unexplained circumstances.
And there are lots of coroner's inquests held every year,
and a lot of them people don't really ever hear about.
I mean, I'd never been to a coroner's inquest. But
the thing is coroner's inquest was held six months or
so after she passed away. Coroner's inquests are public courts.
(37:03):
You can go as a journalist and sit in on
a coroner's inquest. It's considered to be an open court.
But once an inquest has taken place, you can't usually
then access the records afterwards, the transcripts or whatever. So
we applied to the coroner's court and said, can you
give us a recording of the you know, of the
event itself, because this is where we thought we're going
(37:26):
to get the answers, because doctors would be testifying about
what they knew, what they saw. Meghan had spent so
much time in and out of hospitals. She'd been to
Great Ormond Street she was a patient at Great Ormond Street.
She'd been seeing by countless specialists, and her GP would
be there. The pathologists who'd done the post mortems would
also be testifying. So we thought we will finally get
(37:49):
an answer whether Megan really had a brain tumor or not,
and what she really died of and what really happened.
But we didn't know whether we'd get granted access because
it's pretty unusual, frankly for a journalist to be given
transcripts or recordings. I mean, they can't actually give you
a recording of the coroner's inquest after it's happened, and
you're not allowed to take recordings in court either. But
(38:11):
the coroner said, because of this is such an unusual case,
we're going to let you come into the courtroom and
I am going to play you a live recording or
play it for you live once through. So it says
if you're sitting in the room, you're not allowed to
record it, but you can take notes, so you will
be able to hear what happened at that inquest. So
we got to attend the kind of weirdly four years afterwards,
(38:36):
got to attend the coroner's inquest into Megan's.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Death, Jamie, what was that like.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I'd never been to anything like that before, and I
didn't understand at the time why there were all these
restrictions on it. I remember saying to Ruth, why can't
they just send us the transcript? What's the problem? Why
can't we I mean, what's the big deal? Which is
probably a bit insensitive of me, but I was just
(39:04):
sewing to the story that I wasn't really steeing the
wood for the trees, because then I sat through it
and it was grim. It felt intrusive, it was horrible.
Hated it. It was so detailed, it was so medical.
It was you know, the pathologists and the anetheist who
tried to keep Megan alive for hours and hours now
(39:26):
trying to keep her heart beating and stuff. You're listening
in minute by minute detail to the last hours of
a person's life. It's awful. It's awful. I can't it's haunting.
It's terrible, and I hated it. I hate and I
came out of it thinking, I understand now why they
don't just give these things out to journalists. It's private.
(39:48):
It felt so private to Megan and to Jane, to
her family that I really felt like I shouldn't have
been there really at all.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
When you were listening to all of those medical details,
did you get a sense from what you heard of
how she died and what she died from?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
You do? So you've got to sort of try to
shut out the emotion and listen. And you know, there's
a lot of technical medical language in there, but basically
there was no mention at all anywhere of a brain tumor.
The post mortems found that her brain was morphologically normal,
that she died of cardiac arrhythmia, which is an irregular
(40:30):
beating of the heart, most likely caused by fatty liver disease,
likely the result of her obesity, which for a twenty
three year old to die of cardiac arrhythmia caused by
fatty liver disease. We spoke to other specialists about this,
I mean, it is one in a million. It's so unusual,
(40:50):
it's so unusual. And then we heard all these other
very worrying details as well. Megan and Gene had been
doctor hopping, had forged a prescription to get morphine. Some
of the doctors got together, fearing that there was something
strange going on here, so they tried to get a
session with lots of different doctors so they could start
(41:11):
managing the case. Megan and Ging just wouldn't turn up.
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