https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13852369/Girl-eight-died-sepsis-sent-home-ibuprofen-antibiotics-hospital-full.html

Girl, eight, died of sepsis after being sent home to take ibuprofen and antibiotics 'because the hospital was too full'

By Taryn Pedler

Published: 12:10, 15 September 2024 | Updated: 14:29, 15 September 2024

An eight-year-old girl died of sepsis hours after she was sent home twice by a GP who advised her mum to give her fluids and ibuprofen because the hospital was allegedly too full.  Mia Glynn was taken to a GP surgery twice in four hours and despite showing symptoms of Group Strep A her parents were told to take her home.  On the second appointment, the youngster was sent away with antibiotics after being told a hospital was full and they would be waiting in a corridor.  Mia's worried parents Soron, 39, and Katie, 37, first took her to the GP as she had been vomiting, had a severe headache and had been complaining of a sore throat.  By the time of the second visit, she had not eaten properly for a further three days, had a raised heart rate, reduced urine output and was sleepy.  Her concerned mum and dad queried whether she had the infection Group A Strep, which was prevalent at the time.  Despite this, a doctor advised Katie to give Mia fluids and ibuprofen and not to start antibiotics until Mia went to bed.  The schoolgirl, who continued to feel poorly, slept in her parents' bed that night but awoke in the early hours of the morning and was agitated.  Mia, who was disorientated, had rashes on her arms and legs and blue lips, complained she was hot but was cold to touch.  Soron and Katie, of Biddulph, Staffordshire, called an ambulance just after 3am on December 9, 2022, and paramedics rushed Mia to hospital where she was given intravenous fluids and antibiotics.  However, she went into suspected septic shock and suffered a cardiac arrest around 15 minutes after arriving at hospital.  Doctors tried to resuscitate her but she died around 20 minutes later and her cause of death was given as sepsis caused by Group A Strep infection.  Following Mia's death Soron and Katie, who have a 12-year-old son Beau, instructed expert medical negligence lawyers to investigate her care and secure answers.  The heartbroken couple have now spoken for the first time about the 'devastating' loss of their 'beautiful' daughter.  Katie, a self-employed hairdresser, said: 'Our world and hearts broke forever when our beautiful daughter was snatched away from us.  Mia had been taken to the doctors twice to be told her symptoms were viral.  Around 15 hours later she died of sepsis.  The unbelievable and unbearable pain we feel is unexplainable and unimaginable.  Our beautiful healthy girl was the happiest, brightest, most loving and caring girl who smiled, danced, brought joy and love to everyone she met.  She brought so much laughter and fun.'

MailOnline has approached the local town council for comment.  Following Mia's death her family and well-wishers raised more than £40,000 in her memory through fundraising events, including sponsored runs and local business donations.  The family has donated more than £16,000 to the charity UK Sepsis Trust.  Soron and Katie have also set up the charitable organisation aiM an anagram of Mia's name in their daughter's memory.  This year they staged a summer family and music festival - aiM Festival. After the event raised more than £21,000 the family are planning on staging the festival again next year.  Katie added: 'We'll never get over the pain of losing Mia especially in the way we did.  Our family will never be the same without Mia. She had her whole life ahead of her and was taken from us in the cruelest way imaginable.  That she will never get to mark life's milestones such as passing her exams, getting married and starting work is something that will live with us forever.  When we took Mia to the surgery we queried whether she needed urgent treatment. We're now left wondering whether more could have been done to help Mia.  Our hearts hurts every second since Mia's heart stopped. But we will always make sure Mia will be remembered in the most special way.'

Soron, an engineering teacher, added: 'Seeing Mia in her final moments was awful.  We feel so blessed that she was our daughter but are completely heartbroken that Mia was taken from us so soon.  A lot of people may have heard of sepsis but it's only after what happened to Mia that we realise just how dangerous it is.  We started researching and reading more about it and it was clear to us that Mia had red flag symptoms of sepsis but we weren't told to take her to hospital.  It's the sad reality that there are families out there, like us, that are suffering from loss due to sepsis, this has to change.  We need to educate the public and health professionals to identify the signs of sepsis and ask the question 'could it be sepsis?'. 

Victoria Zinzan, the specialist medical negligence lawyer at Irwin Mitchell representing the couple, said: 'Mia was a cherished daughter and sister whose death has had a devastating impact on her family.  Understandably her loved ones continue to have a number of concerns about her death and the circumstances surrounding it.  Sadly through our work we see too many families affected by sepsis; with Mia's death vividly highlighting the dangers of the condition.  Early diagnosis and treatment is key to beating sepsis, therefore it's vital people know what signs to look out for when it comes to detecting this incredibly dangerous and life-threatening condition.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13821713/Son-murdered-Afghan-terror-suspect-taliban-Britain.html

My beautiful boy was murdered by an Afghan terror suspect who posed as a child orphaned by Taliban to sneak into Britain but he'd already killed twice. It's torn my family apart and now authorities are trying to cover it up

By James Fielding

Published: 08:07, 9 September 2024 | Updated: 08:08, 9 September 2024

Peter Wallace is haunted by the last moments of his beloved stepson's life.  Peter wasn't there, outside a branch of the sandwich chain Subway on a Bournemouth street, in the small hours of March 12, 2022, to witness the moment 21-year-old Tom Roberts was stabbed in the chest by Afghan migrant Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai.  But Peter, who welcomed Tom into his life as a one-year-old when he met and fell in love with the boy's mother Dolores, has seen the CCTV footage. It is seared in his memory.  He can recall each agonising second of watching Tom, who aspired to become a Royal Marine, intervene in a heated row between his own friend and Abdurahimzai over an e-scooter.  'I watched the CCTV of his last moments and the last thing he did was put his arms out between the killer I can't bear to say his name and his friend,' says Peter.

'The fact that Tommy had both his arms stretched out meant that he wasn't protecting his body, and the killer straight away reached into his trousers, pulled out a knife and stabbed him.'

Two years have passed, and the grief Peter feels is ever-present and has only been compounded by all that has happened since.  For in the devastating aftermath of Tom's murder, it emerged that this was no simple case of wrong person, in the wrong place at the wrong time.  When he had slipped off a cross-channel ferry into the country, in 2019, Abdulrahimzai had told Border Force officers he was a 14-year-old orphan, fleeing the Taliban.  The truth, however, was very different; in reality he was 19 and had already killed twice before that night, gunning down two fellow Afghan migrants with a Kalashnikov rifle in Serbia in 2018 where he worked as a people smuggler, while zig-zagging his way around Europe.  The numerous failures that left an adult killer free to walk the streets, masquerading as a child, then the catalogue of missed opportunities to spot the red flags that could have served as a warning of the dangers to come were laid bare in the wake of the tragedy.  Blunder upon blunder that heaped agony on Tom's grieving family, who, after Abdulrahimzai's conviction for murder in January last year, accused the Border Force and Home Office of systematic failures which allowed Abdulrahimzai into the country.  They had hoped that a full inquest into his death would lead to some accountability from the authorities.  But last week, those hopes were dealt another crashing blow when, after a number of pre-inquest review hearings, senior coroner for Dorset Rachael Griffin ruled there was no need for a full inquest to take place.  Mrs Griffin ruled the inquest did not meet the criteria for Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights, that the state knew or ought to have known of an immediate risk to an individual's life they have to take reasonable steps to deal with that risk.  She said Tom and Abdulrahimzai were strangers and although there was an 'emerging pattern of violent behaviour and a risk to others of harm', at the time of the murder the illegal immigrant had not used a knife in an act of violence nor made any threats to kill since arriving in the UK in December 2019.

But for Peter, the catalogue of mistakes and missed opportunities is as damning as the senseless crime that robbed him of the boy he loved and raised.  'The killer didn't just take Tommy's life he destroyed my whole family,' he says, sadly.

Peter and Tom's mother Dolores started a relationship in 2001 and married six years later; Peter helping to raise not only Tom, but his elder sisters Patti and Erika. The couple went on to have a son together, William, who is 14.  But Peter reveals that he and Dolores separated after nearly 25 years together last March. Why?

'The strain of trying to be a normal family became too much and we parted ways,' he says. 'It's devastated me because we were so happy before this happened.  I have a cherished memory of myself and Dolores sipping tea in bed on a Sunday, surrounded by Tommy and the other kids playing by our side. It was a really wholesome and lovely experience. But it's all gone now. Only William has kept me going.'

Peter speaks with pride of the boy who he taught to ride a bike and who grew into a strapping young man, albeit one who remained a gentle soul.  'Tommy did not have an aggressive bone in his body,' he says. 'In fact, I don't think he ever had a fight in his life.  He didn't really go out too much either, he was very homely. He and his friends were really keen on keeping fit and healthy.  For the last two years, Tommy had been training at a boxing gym in Christchurch. He never liked hurting anybody so would mainly work-out, train on the punchbags and spar.  I was pleased because he was somebody who wouldn't say boo to a goose and I wanted him to learn how to look after himself because I know how the world can be.  He'd built up an impressive physique and was proud of how big his arms were and how toned he was. He was in really good physical shape.  This is the thing that bothers me, he could have overpowered his attacker had he wanted to or had the chance to, but he didn't have that aggression in him.  We always told him, 'walk away and live another day' and so he was never one who'd go out looking for fights. He was the gentlest kid you could ever meet.'

On the night violence erupted into his life, Tom, a part-time DJ, had been out with two friends and was looking for a cab home when, in the kind of innocuous scene that unfolds on many a city street after a night out, one of his friends picked up an e-scooter from the ground outside a Subway sandwich store and joked they should ride it home.  An enraged Abdulrahimzai stormed over and confronted them. Tom initially walked away, but returned when the argument grew more intense.  He carefully placed his hand out to suggest they were of no threat but when the Afghani squared up to him he slapped him away in self-defence. At this point, Abdulrahimzai produced a 10-inch, gold-handled knife from the waistband of his trousers and stabbed Tom, twice.  Recalling the moment the family were told, Peter says: 'It was five or six o'clock in the morning and we got a call from Poole Hospital to say that Tommy had been stabbed and that it was very serious and could we come down.  We got there as fast as we could but when we got there, he'd already gone.  He'd died at the scene, the medics had managed to revive him enough to be taken to hospital but they couldn't save him.  The worst thing was not being allowed to see him. The police needed to keep his body in the mortuary for forensic purposes.  We couldn't hug him one last time and say goodbye. All we had was a bag of his possessions.'

First came the heartache, then, as an investigation unfolded, the revelations.  It transpired that Abdulrahimzai had arrived in the UK on December 26, 2019, hidden in a vehicle on a ferry from Cherbourg and told Border Force officials he was 14, but no age assessment was carried out.  Astonishingly, he was placed into two secondary schools in Bournemouth after claiming to have escaped Afghanistan, where the Taliban had killed both his parents.  Concerns over Abdulrahimzai's real identity and age were raised on several occasions including by his foster carer. His fingerprints were taken a few weeks after arriving in the UK and revealed he had links with Norway and Italy.  The prints were sent to both countries but with no request for any further information. If this had been done it would have revealed his true age.  Neither were Abdulrahimzai's fingerprints shared with Interpol either, not until after Tom's death, when a search revealed that in September 2022 he had been convicted of shooting two men dead in Serbia.  Alarm bells might have rung so many times: when he was expelled from one school for carrying a knife on the premises, when he was removed from care after threatening his foster mother, or when two days before he killed Tom he was stopped by police for carrying a machete.  He was, as Tom's family put it, 'a loaded canon', one that just happened to point at Tom.  There had been so much promise to the life Tom was building.  Ambitious, he'd recently completed an engineering apprenticeship and had submitted an application to join the Royal Marines.  Peter recalls fondly how his stepson excelled at design and technology as a student at St Peter's School in Bournemouth and then at Highcliffe School.  'He moved to Highcliffe and had planned to do A-levels there until he secured a two-year apprenticeship with a local engineering firm,' he says. 'I think he was a little bored of what he was doing to be honest, he was hands-on and liked a challenge and so wanted to continue with engineering but with the Royal Marines.  His father has a military background and Tommy was physically very fit. He signed up and sent off the application a month before he was murdered. We never heard back so will never know if he would've been successful.  Tommy had his whole life in front of him. He was smitten with his girlfriend, Gemma. He told his mother and myself that he was really keen on her. He hadn't bought an engagement ring or anything like that; but I don't think a proposal was too far away. He'd talked about it.'

Instead of new memories, Peter is left with the old ones of the boy he cherished as if he were his own.  'Tommy was a great kid,' he says. 'I taught him to ride a bike and we'd often go out together in the kayak off places like Lymington and Beaulieu and he absolutely loved being part of Sea Scouts. He just loved the water.  He also played rugby for a time when he was about ten. But it was just to keep me happy really because I loved rugby. Tommy was never that keen on playing because he didn't like the thought of getting hurt or, worse, hurting an opposition player.  When he first started playing, he'd chuck the ball away on purpose but gradually he learned how to pass and tackle.'

Peter has had to hold on to those memories in the dark days since Tom's murder.  'I fell into a pit of despair when Tommy died,' he admits. 'I didn't know what to do.  I lost my stepson and then my wife and had to walk away from work because I was becoming too aggressive.  My background is in physiotherapy but most recently I was working for a company selling medical supplies and on a few occasions I got into arguments with customers.  I was warned about my conduct and I knew I had to step back before things became even worse.  People say that time is a great healer but two and half years on and the pain is just as intense perhaps even more so as I've lost everything.  I'm undergoing counselling but I'm not the same man I was. I watched Tommy's last moments played in court. I didn't want to, but I needed to know what happened.  I watched that man pull out a knife and stab the boy that I'd taught to ride a bike, took kayaking and surfing. The blow caused him to stumble towards some bins and fall down on the floor never to get up.  That would change anyone. It's all about learning to cope with what's happened because you never get over it.'

As for his son's killer, he says: 'There were so many warning signs that Abdulrahimzai should not be here yet the Home Office did nothing about it.  It feels like everything is being swept under the carpet and it is a big cover-up.'

At the time of the inquest ruling, a Home Office spokesperson said: 'Our deepest sympathies remain with the loved ones of Thomas Roberts.  We will consider the findings of the coroner's report, but it would not be appropriate to comment further in the interim.'

The Home Office has been contacted for further comment.
 
Bloodstained journey of Afghan double murderer who shot two people dead with an AK-47 in Serbia but was allowed to claim asylum in the UK before killing again

He was the drug dealing double murderer whose violent past eluded the Home Office and Border Force agents when he claimed asylum on Boxing Day 2019.  But barely two years after arriving in Poole, Dorset having duped officials into thinking he was a 14-year-old boy 'knife obsessed' Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai added a third victim to his body count, murdering innocent Thomas Roberts in cold blood.  The 21-year-old Afghan national stabbed the aspiring Royal Marine to death during an argument over an e-scooter in Bournemouth town centre in March last year.  And on Monday, Abdulrahimzai was found guilty of murder following a trial at Salisbury Crown Court where his bloodstained journey from Afghanistan to Bournemouth was finally unveiled.  In a stunning revelation, the court heard how Abdulrahimzai had been handed a 20-year prison sentence in his absence for ruthlessly slaughtering two fellow Afghans in Serbia, gunning them both down with an AK-47 assault rifle in 2018.  Earlier, the court heard how as a 15-year-old child, Abdulrahimzai had been tortured and left for dead by the Taliban who had previously executed both his parents when he was just four or five.   Now Abdulrahimzai's journey can be revealed.   October 2001: Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai claimed, like many Afghan children, not to know his date of birth. But a court later determined that he was born around this time just weeks after Al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden masterminded the 9/11 terror attacks in America.  Abdulrahimzai said he was four or five years old when his parents were killed by the Taliban in the Laghman province in the east of the country.  Oct 2015: Having been tortured by the Taliban and left for dead at the side of the road, Abdulrahimzai is smuggled out of Afghanistan through Pakistan by a man described as his 'uncle'. He has his fingerprints taken in Serbia, and then a few weeks later in Norway.

Jul 2016: Abdulrahimzai, using one of his many fake names, has his fingerprints taken in the northeastern port city of Trieste, Italy.

Feb 2017: He is convicted of two drug offences in Italy and handed a suspended sentence.

Jun 2017: Abdulrahimzai is back in Serbia.

Jul 31 to Aug 1, 2018: Abdulrahimzai guns down two fellow Afghans with an assault rifle at a shed near a motorway in Dobrinci in an apparent argument about people smuggling. He flees in a taxi. He is declared a wanted man by Serbian authorities.

Oct 2018: Abdulrahimzai is back in Norway.

Nov 2019: He applies for asylum in Norway, but is refused.

Dec 26 2019: Weeks later, Abdulrahimzai travels as an unaccompanied passenger on a Brittany Ferries service from Cherbourg in France to Poole in Dorset. Upon arrival, he tells officials he is 14, when in reality he is thought to be around 19 years old.

Jan 2, 2020: He is placed into the foster care of Nicola Marchant-Jones, an experienced foster carer in Bournemouth. Adbulrahimzai, who is initially unable to speak English, later begins attending school locally - where the depraved killer went on to 'terrify' young girls, sending them indecent selfies, and beating up young boys.

Nov 2020: Abdulrahimzai goes on trial, in his absence, in Serbia for the double-murder. He is convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Dec 2020: Ms Marchant-Jones raises the alarm with social services, who contact police, after she spots Abdulrahimzai with a knife during a shopping trip. He is spoken to, but not arrested.

2021: Home Office's Prevent anti-terrorism task group was told Abdulrahimzai was 'susceptible to terrorism' in 2021.

Aug 2021: Abdulrahimzai has an argument with his foster mother and leaves the home. He is later placed with another family.

Mar 10, 2022: Dorset Police receive a report that he is carrying a knife. No weapon is found, however, and no arrests are made.

Mar 12, 2022: Abdulrahimzai headbutts a man during a row outside a nightclub in Bournemouth. Moments later, he gets into an argument with 24-year-old James Medway over an e-scooter.  Thomas Roberts, 21, acts as 'peacekeeper' but is then stabbed twice by Abdulrahimzai. The incident lasts less than half a minute. The killer escapes on foot. Aspiring Royal Marine Mr Roberts dies later in hospital.

Mar 13, 2022:  Abdulrahimzai is arrested after accidentally leaving his phone at the scene. He tells officers he is 16 years old.

Jan 23, 2023: Abdulrahimzai, determined by a court to be 21, is convicted of murdering Mr Roberts and jailed for a minimum term of 29 years.

January 2024: Senior coroner Rachael Griffin rules at a pre-inquest review hearing that Tom's death was not related to a terrorist incident or terrorist activity and Home Office Prevent reviews are not relevant to this inquest.

September 2024: Senior coroner rules there is no need for a full inquest looking at Home Office failings to take place.

https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2024/01/02/finding-peace-when-life-is-out-of-control?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9jYs5m7ic3YZ8hfmAJKAhwVSq4JivJk3dAnDXMdYqCMVGsuPj7g9o1CW7CHey90WL2iqw2dy37ZEfn71-4MyXlZZGv8A&_hsmi=285709404&utm_content=285709404&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

Finding Peace When Life Is out of Control
January 2, 2024
by Lauren and Michael McAfee

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27 (NIV)

When things don’t go our way, our reflex is to grasp for control, organize and systematize, plot and plan, and make bold declarations of what we’ll do if things don’t get turned around fast.  My husband and I experienced this when our adoption journey took years longer than we’d expected and again when our daughter was diagnosed with cancer seven weeks after we brought her home. We tried to strategize, scheme and barter with God yet again when a judge told us to hand over our foster son to his biological family a year after we had brought him into our home.  When we realize deep in our souls that we are not in control, but God is, we know peace and hope beyond our circumstances. We begin to understand that God can bring good to us despite the most evil and devastating events in our lives. God is orchestrating all things for His eternal glory and our eternal joy.  Just before Jesus faced His crucifixion, He gathered His disciples in the upper room to share a final meal together. Jesus knew they would feel fearful after His crucifixion, so He told them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).

Peace. Wholeness. The basic definition of the word “shalom” can mean “made good,” “fully restored,” “set at one again.” It's the sense that whatever was missing has been returned, whatever was lacking has been replaced, whatever was fractured has been brought back together.  Just as Jesus offered peace to His disciples, God longs to usher peace into your life. But this isn’t something He will force on you. This is something you choose.  If peace seems inaccessible, ask God to search you and know your heart, to try you and know your thoughts, like David prayed in Psalm 139:23-24. Invite God to probe the innermost part of you to see what might be askew. Are you believing that God is who He says He is?

That He is doing what He said He would do?

What unbelief could be leading you away from the peace to be found in Him today?

God doesn’t stand back as we struggle or try to convince us pain doesn’t exist it does. But in His very presence, God declares over us that our pain doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Pain does not get to win. And by His power, accompanied by prevailing peace, God will walk us from here to eternity in safety, holding our hand each step of the way.

https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2023/12/19/if-rest-feels-unrealistic-for-your-life-right-now?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8-RfzYL-NYhx4xWapdCItoeIkmTA9bhlNJ_KNsj64LdTH9vWcTSnxbb6zx_UjhglR1VIPeeFVIzX4iR8fuGMJRiYyOXg&_hsmi=284096021&utm_content=284096021&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

If Rest Feels Unrealistic for Your Life Right Now
December 19, 2023
by Dr. Joel Muddamalle

“On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.” Genesis 2:2-3 (CSB)

Is the pace of your life exhausting you?

I get it. Between both me and my wife working full time, raising four children, managing two dogs, and juggling responsibilities in the home, rest has felt like a destination we’ll reach one day (when we’re retired if we’re lucky).  But recently, I’ve been deeply convicted of the lack of rest in my life. This goes beyond the amount of sleep I’m getting every night. The tyranny of the urgent weighs on me. My to-do lists overflow. There is always something left to be done. I can’t help but feel like I’m falling short and playing catch-up constantly.  The tragedy is that living a life without rest is not biblical, and it’s not the life God modeled for us either. Look at Genesis 2:2-3 with me:  “On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.”

I’ve always read this verse and thought God ceased to do anything on the seventh day. But it’s actually not that simple. Yes, God worked for six days and rested on the seventh day, but He didn’t cease to create on the seventh day. He just created in a totally different way. On the seventh day, He created peace, tranquility and rest.

We are invited to create this same peace in our lives by incorporating God's rhythm of rest, which the Bible refers to as “Sabbath,” into our weekly routines.  My family recently started doing an intentional Sabbath one day a week. On this day, we rest. But like God modeled for us in Genesis, we don’t stop all activity. We just work in a different way. We learn how to live in the serenity of an unhurried existence, being still long enough to feel God’s presence, hear God’s instruction and see God’s blessing.  God designed Sabbath to be something that fuels and energizes us not something that we work ourselves to the bone to achieve and experience.  If Sabbath has felt unrealistic or overwhelming to you, I get it. If you’re there today, I want to share three simple things my family and I work into this weekly rhythm:

1.  We set intentions on the morning of Sabbath by asking ourselves, What is one way we want to recharge today? Sometimes that looks like reading a book, taking a nap or going on a walk.

2.  We reduce technology and pick a family board game to play.

3.  My wife and I cook dinner together, and we all eat together at the table.

Don’t let the misconceptions of what Sabbath “has to look like” get in the way of trying it at all. There have been some bumps in the road, and my family and I definitely aren’t doing it perfectly but we are doing it. And we’re experiencing the fruit of a life that is well rested as we follow the instruction of Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30:  “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (CSB).

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13750781/rotting-mummified-body-garden-girl-mysterious-Welsh-community-neighbours-murder-untold-story-Body-Garden-TV-series.html

When a mummified body was found in a Welsh village, the killer turned out to be the most unlikely suspect. Her unmasking left a sleepy community in shock

By Sarah Rainey

Published: 16:56, 16 August 2024 | Updated: 16:56, 16 August 2024

Nothing much happens in Beddau, a former mining village in south Wales.  Beddau (pronounced 'beh-tha') means 'Graves' in Welsh, and the small community here has a reputation for being uneventful, peaceful and safe as quiet, some say, as the grave. 'That's why we moved here,' says Alison Wiltshire, 64, who has lived in the area with her husband Roddy, 65, for 36 years. 

'We were originally up in the Valleys and we came to Beddau when we had young children. It's a nice area to live, lots of families and a really welcoming community.'

But one day back in November 2015, that changed and the name of the village the Wiltshire family call home took on a sinister new meaning.  Two local women found a dead body, wrapped in plastic in a communal garden on a housing estate in the centre of Beddau and police launched a murder investigation.  One of the women, Michelle James, was arrested and the other, Rhian Lee, was taken in for questioning. A cordon was set up and police began rigorous searches and forensic tests, conducting interviews with everyone in the area.  The body was a white male, middle-aged and around 5ft 6in tall, dressed in blue striped Marks & Spencer pyjamas and with a gold signet ring on one finger.  He had been killed, it was soon ascertained, by blunt-force trauma to the head, and his body wrapped 41 times, in a combination of carrier bags, plastic sheeting and carpet.  A pathologist estimated the victim, whose skin, hair and organs were still intact, had been dead for weeks or months at most.  But who was he?

Who had murdered him?

And why?

What ensued, as documented in a new, three-part series, The Body Next Door, on Sky Documentaries, was a deeply unsettling time for the residents of Beddau, as suspicion and rumour gripped the village and dominated daily life.  Police went door-to-door. Neighbours turned on one another. People began checking their locks, holding their children's hands a little tighter, afraid a murderer might be on the prowl.  'It was winter the nights were dark and it was all very spooky,' Roddy recalls. 'We were all in total shock. Things like that don't happen around here.'

Alison says it was 'the talk of the village for weeks'.

Police, awaiting forensic examination of the body, were at a loss for clues, which only fuelled wagging tongues in the community.  Michelle James was released after four days, with detectives putting her inconsistent answers down to shock, rather than guilt.  However, that wasn't the end of her plight, with her name now tainted among people she'd previously called friends. 'She was badly affected by it,' Rhian Lee, the friend who found the body with Michelle, told the Mail this week. 

'It was terrible she'd go to the shops and people would shout 'Murderer' at her. It was so unfair.'

Rhian, 48, still lives in Beddau, across the road from the Trem-Y-Cwm flats where the body was found on November 24, 2015. She, too, was questioned by police, and had seven months of counselling to come to terms with it all.  It would be three long weeks before Rhian, the Wiltshires and other worried residents of Beddau finally got some answers.  But the results of forensic tests were more jaw-dropping than anyone could have imagined.  Analysis of the materials wrapping the body (including a Tesco bag dated '1992') and fluids from the victim revealed he'd been dead a lot longer than experts had predicted: almost two decades, in fact.  Further examinations uncovered his identity: John Sabine, a 67-year-old resident of the flats, whose wife, Leigh, 74, an eccentric figure who claimed to be a cabaret singer from New Zealand, had died just 25 days before the body was found, of terminal brain cancer.  Leigh and John had signed the lease on their flat together in February 1997, and John was recorded visiting a doctor in Beddau in April that year but, after that, he was never seen again.  Leigh told friends he had been violent and abusive, claiming he once raped her and used to lock her in their flat.  A breast cancer survivor, she said he had left her because of her double mastectomy and explained his disappearance by saying he'd moved to Newcastle in the late 1990s.  'We would sit and chat, and I said, 'What happened to John?',' recalls Mary West, 68, a teacher at the local comprehensive school and street pastor, who befriended Leigh in 2014 when her mother was living in the same block.

'She'd say, 'Oh, he left me. He left me for another woman, because he's Italian and that's what they do.'

DNA evidence, dental records and a match on a hip replacement confirmed that John was, indeed, the body in the bag. But he wasn't Italian, he was an accountant born in London. Nor had he left Leigh.  The multiple layers of wrapping, which went 20cm deep, had prevented decomposition, effectively mummifying the body for 18 years.  Suspicion immediately fell on Leigh: a blonde hair found within the packaging linked her irrefutably with the crime, and it was revealed that she'd been claiming John's pension for herself. The police had their murderer.  Leigh Ann Sabine (she also went by 'Lee' and 'Ann') was the most flamboyant figure people in this sleepy Welsh village had ever encountered.  Neighbours remember a larger-than-life, outspoken woman who called everyone 'Darling' and was rarely seen without a cigarette in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. She always wore red lipstick and nail varnish, dyed her permed hair peroxide blonde and was known for her 'look-at-me outfits'.  'When she first turned up, a lady in her 60s, she was wearing denim shorts with fishnet tights,' remembers Mary West. 'I asked her about this once and she said, 'Well, I want to be noticed, darling,'.'

No-one could quite work out Leigh's origins: she claimed to be from New Zealand, where she and John had lived before moving to the UK first to Reading in 1986, then to Beddau.  'She had a very strange accent, in one sentence trying to talk quite posh, and then not,' says Alison Wiltshire.

Later investigation would reveal she was, in fact, Welsh, born Ann Evans, to a coal mining family in the Rhonda Valley, just 20 minutes up the road from Beddau.  Her career path, too, was something of a mystery.  Leigh told friends and neighbours outlandish stories: she'd been a drugs counsellor, a dog breeder, a dancer, a model and a famous cabaret singer, though Google searches yielded not a single mention of her name.  Hanging in the spare bedroom of her cluttered, chintzy flat was a black-and-white portrait of herself, dolled up to the nines, supposedly in her heyday.  'She was very eccentric, and even though I wasn't really sure if all her stories were true, it was always fun listening to her,' says Sian Baker, 51, who runs a hair salon in Beddau and started doing Leigh's hair in 2005.

'She told us she would be famous but for all the wrong reasons. I never understood that at the time.'

In fact, Leigh had once made headlines, but not in the way she liked to suggest. She and John had five children in New Zealand, whom they'd cruelly abandoned in 1969, leaving them then aged between two and 11 at a nursery in Auckland without explanation.  They moved to Sydney, purportedly to pursue her singing dream, but returned to New Zealand in 1972, where astonishingly they changed their surname and failed to contact their children, who were now in state care.  Speaking to the Auckland Star in 1984, when they attempted an abortive reunion with their children, Leigh branded a 'runaway mum' claimed she had done it all 'for love' to build them a better life.  Leigh and John forged a relationship with their eldest son, Marty, with whom they moved to the UK, but later lost touch with, while the younger four stayed in New Zealand and heard nothing of their parents until their mother's death, when the twisted saga started to unravel.  Meanwhile, in Wales, police were faced with a troubling question: in the last 12 months of Leigh's life she'd been increasingly frail, meaning she wouldn't have been able to move the body of her long-dead husband.  So how had it got into the garden at Trem-Y-Cwm flats?

Suspicion bubbled up once again. There was Lynne Williams, a carer who had looked after Leigh in her final months. Along with Rhian and Michelle, she'd helped clear the old woman's flat and distributed her possessions after her death.  Mary, too, was questioned by police, as Leigh had dubbed her the unofficial 'executor' of her will. Even Alison and Roddy had a talk with detectives, as they were among the few Beddau locals to have met John Sabine, having visited the couple's flat for a cup of tea when they first moved in.  Police soon learned, from piecing together fragments of Leigh's outrageous and embellished tales, that she had long-claimed to own a 'medical skeleton' from her days as a nurse.  Leigh had briefly trained as a nurse at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, which is where, as a 17-year-old in 1957, she met John, then 28, who was being treated for injuries he'd suffered in the Korean War. Everyone Leigh met seemed to know about her macabre possession,  Although it's unclear where Leigh stored her husband's body, it's reported to have been kept under her divan bed, with its flowery duvet and heart-shaped pillow the same bed where police believe she bludgeoned John to death, using a stone frog she kept as a doorstop.  Alison and Roddy remember a 'terrible smell in the air' when they visited the block.  It's thought Leigh kept re-wrapping the body as the years passed, in a bid to conceal it and stop the rotten stench.  A carpet that was found wrapped around it can be seen in situ in the flat in a picture taken by photographer Juliet Eden, who interviewed Leigh at home in 2014, showing she was still adding to the wrapping even then.  Rhian believes Leigh paid a couple of local men to move it, possibly inside a wheelie bin, down to the communal garden in the years before her death.  Leigh had a new and perhaps peculiar interest in the garden in later life, even appearing in a local magazine in 2012 where she was credited with breathing new life into the shared space.  Once a year, she'd host a BBQ there for residents in the surrounding flats.  'Michelle must have spotted the bag when she was putting her washing on the line,' Rhian says. 'It was on the gravelly bit of the patio, with a long potting table over the top.  It was hidden, but you could see it, it was just that nobody tried to look at it until that day.'

On November 24, 2015, Rhian was at Michelle's house directly below Leigh's old flat, No 57 having a coffee, when the pair decided to play a prank on Keith, another upstairs neighbour.  On the spur-of-the-moment, Michelle remembered her crazy old friend's medical skeleton.  She and Rhian decided to take two kitchen knives, cut open the bag in the garden and bring the skeleton into her living room, where they were going to prop it on the sofa, call Keith over and joke that it was Michelle's new boyfriend.  But when they started sawing through the layers of plastic, putrid sludge began leaking out, and they realised they'd found something else entirely.  We will never know quite why or how Leigh came to murder John, though ever brazen she appears to have made an early confession to a friend.  Valerie Chalkley, who knew the couple when they lived in Reading, contacted the police about a phone call she received from Leigh back in 1997.  In the call, Valerie asked Leigh if she was still with John, joking that they might have killed each other by now, so turbulent was their marriage.  Leigh replied: 'I have killed him. I hit him over the head with a stone frog because he was getting on my nerves.'

Valerie brushed it off as a poor-taste joke. Nearly two decades later, distinctive features on the frog (found among Leigh's possessions) were matched to the injuries on John's skull.  The gruesome tale, the stuff of Hollywood horror, is the talk of Beddau once again this week and neighbours still have stories to tell about 'Mad Leigh'.  The communal garden beneath her old flat is unchanged: there are washing lines, children's bikes propped against a wall and a pink laundry bucket. A deflated rugby ball lies on the gravel where John's body was found.  One resident, a 36-year-old who got to know Leigh as a teenager, says: 'I never thought of her as a murderer, but what does a murderer look like?

Erland van Lidth

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