https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13384271/Britains-heaviest-man-50st-bullied-died.html

Tragic demise of Britain's 'heaviest man' as he dies aged 33: Heartbreak behind why Jason Holton ballooned to 50st and the 'devastating' moment he was airlifted out of bed by crane

By Katherine Lawton and Elena Salvoni

Published: 09:21, 5 May 2024 | Updated: 10:33, 5 May 2024

Britain's heaviest man who died from organ failure told how losing his father as a toddler and being bullied at school saw him balloon to 50 stone in weight.  Jason Holton, from Camberley in Surrey, died just days before celebrating his 34th birthday, after being housebound for eight years due to his large frame.  The 33-year-old died last Saturday after doctors were unable to prevent his organs from failing.  Mr Holton began overeating as a teenager, and attributed bullying at school and mental health problems as the root cause of his weight gain.  He added that the death of his father when he was just three years old also had a profound impact. He told TalkTV: 'Maybe if I had my father around, maybe there would be rules set to what I'm eating and stuff to stop me putting things and stuff in my mouth.  Just eating constantly.  Lamb doner meat, I had a problem with energy drinks. I just decided to get 15 of the Monster cans and drink them all in one go.'

His mother Leisa told The Sun that her son recently 'started to go downhill' after his kidneys stopped working.  'He's probably had about eight lives and I thought the doctors would be able to save him again, but sadly it wasn't possible,' she said.

Mr Holton was reportedly transferred from his home to Royal Surrey County Hospital by a special ambulance which six firefighters had to carry him to.  His mother said he was put on kidney dialysis and an IV drip but that his organs continued to fail.  Doctors then told him he would pass away within a week, she said, and he passed away on Saturday.  The coroner's report stated that he died from organ failure and obesity.   Mr Holton lived in a custom-built council bungalow fitted with specially reinforced furniture.  He had hoped to be prescribed slimming jab Wegovy, without which he feared he would die by 2025, describing his situation as a 'timebomb'.  He told TalkTV in October: 'I believe time's over for me in general. I'm coming up 34 now. I know I've got to try something.'

At his peak, he weighed more than 50st and dubbed himself 'Britain's fattest man'.  At one point, Mr Holton would consume 10,000 calories a day four times the usual daily amount for a man including eating doner kebabs for breakfast   He was deemed too heavy for a gastric band. In 2022, he suffered a series of mini strokes and a suspected blood clot.  In 2020, he collapsed and had to be airlifted by crane from his mother's third floor flat by a team of more than 30 firemen and engineers.  He described the incident as 'the most devastating time of my life. The terrifying part of it all was the amount of people outside.'

His health problems meant he was unable to work, leaving him on benefits. It is estimated his healthcare cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds.  He insisted he cut down and had been eating healthier, but that it had made little difference.  He said: 'I've been making changes which I seriously have for the audience by the way I have been, my diet now it's not consistent of loads of junk and I'm not changing.'

Mr Holton is believed to have become the UK's fattest man after 65st Carl Thompson died in 2015.  The 33-year-old, from Dover, had been housebound for more than a year after doctors warned he needed to lose 70 per cent of his body-weight to survive.  When his mother died of a brain tumour in 2012, Mr Thompson turned to junk food as a means of coping with his grief despite already being obese.  His weight went from 30 stone to 65 in three years, leaving him unable to care for himself.  Unable to walk or even dress himself, he was bathed and cooked for by a team of NHS carers. He died after suffering from organ failure and sepsis.

Doner kebabs, crisps, chocolate and three tubs of chicken chow mein: His 10,000-calorie daily diet

Morning

Large doner kebab meat portion and chips (2,500 calories)

Pop tarts (200 calories in each one)

Afternoon

Three large tubs of chicken chow mein (2,500), prawn crackers (400) and prawn toast (300) from Chinese takeaway

Pop tarts - There are around 200 calories in each pop tart

Evening

Two cheese sandwiches, (1,000) two chocolate bars (1,000) and three packets of crisps (550)

1.5 litres of orange juice (800) and five cans of diet coke (trace)

I do wonder about some people ....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-13379157/The-real-life-Martha-Baby-Reindeer-targeting-Ive-four-day-barrage-non-stop-calls-terrifying-messages-just-like-Netflix-writes-NEIL-SEARS-type-phone-ringing-again.html?login&param_code=0rgjyuxenul6lh6g54g7&param_state=eyJyZW1lbWJlck1lIjpmYWxzZSwicmFuZG9tU3RhdGUiOiJiNWQ2ZWM0NC1kMTEwLTQ1NzEtODc2YS1iNTU1MzFiYzhlN2QifQ%3D%3D&param__host=www.dailymail.co.uk&param_geolocation=row&base_fe_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2F&validation_fe_uri=%2Fregistration%2Fp%2Fapi%2Ffield%2Fvalidation%2F&check_user_fe_uri=registration%2Fp%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Fuser_check%2F&isMobile=false

The real-life 'Martha' from Baby Reindeer is now targeting ME: I've had a four-day barrage of non-stop calls and terrifying messages just like on the Netflix show, writes NEIL SEARS. As I type, the phone is ringing again...

By Neil Sears

Published: 12:41, 3 May 2024 | Updated: 14:58, 3 May 2024

The most recent voicemail message was the most chilling. 'You have made a bitter enemy of me,' she said. 'You are the c*** from hell.'

Those words, delivered in her distinctive Scottish accent, gave me a glimpse of how she had allegedly terrified her victims.  For this was the real-life 'Martha', the woman portrayed as a sick serial stalker in the hit Netflix television show Baby Reindeer, speaking to my answerphone last weekend, the culmination of a four-day barrage of calls and voicemails.  It was followed by a warning never to approach her again, couched in legalese which the former law student picked up in the course of the legal training she boasts of.  On social media, she went on to denounce me as a fat liar, an 'overgrown bipolar schoolboy' and said she was considering charging £3,000 an hour for the time she spent talking to me, which she claimed was her professional due.  To be clear, I feel it was perfectly legitimate for 'Martha' to call me. I had met and interviewed her for three and a half hours for an article in the Daily Mail published last Saturday.  But in 30 years of journalism including the occasion when comedian-turned-conspiracy theorist Russell Brand took offence at what I'd written about him and turned his eight million fans on me I have never encountered such a tsunami of calls.  Let me explain. The Netflix series Baby Reindeer has shot to No1 for the streamer in 30 countries, including the UK and the US. It is written by Richard Gadd who also plays the central character, Donny, and is supposedly based on his real-life experience as a struggling stand-up comic working in a pub in London's Camden, who offers a free cup of tea to a customer called Martha. Oddly, despite claiming to be a high-flying lawyer, she can't afford to buy herself a drink.  She turns out to be a convicted stalker who goes on to make Donny's life a misery, haunting his address, disrupting his stand-up shows, at one point smashing a glass in his face, at another attacking his trans girlfriend, and claiming his father is a paedophile. Ultimately, she is jailed.  Viewers are told the drama is based on a 'true story', and Gadd has made it clear in interviews that while details have been changed the real stalker was never imprisoned, for instance - the character Martha is based on the woman who sent him 41,071 emails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages, letters totalling 106 pages, and left 350 hours' worth of phone messages.  The popularity of the series set off an army of determined internet sleuths who, before long, had identified Martha as a 58-year-old Scottish woman who the Mail has chosen not to name living in London. The record of tweets she posted a decade ago, coupled with an injunction against her for stalking a Scottish MP's family more than 20 years ago, certainly seemed damning and, after she agreed to talk to me, the several hours I spent with her left no doubt in my mind.  Indeed, she herself agreed she must be the inspiration for Martha although she denied any wrongdoing, or that any injunctions had been taken out, and maintained that Gadd was effectively stalking HER by profiting from his show, after she had 'turned him down'.  I met the real-life Martha at her new, one-bedroom council flat in a central London high-rise last week. A short, solid woman she told me she had put on weight during lockdown, like many of us with brown shoulder-length hair, she sat surrounded by boxes of possessions.  Perhaps as a result of failings by the council-contracted removal firm which she had plenty to say about her only furniture appeared to be one dining chair, a rocking chair and a small table.  She explained she had moved to the flat the day before and apologised for her attire jogging trousers saying she had yet to unpack her clothes.  While we chatted, she let slip that she has a weekly food budget of £30 and this, taken with her surroundings, seemed rather at odds with her repeated boasts that she was both a top lawyer and talented singer.  'I'm not practising just now, but I'm launching my own law firm soon, in London's Abbey Road, to represent only musicians,' she told me. 'We had staff all lined up but it was delayed by the pandemic.'

Later she told me that she was trying to record an album herself. 'It's like Susan Boyle stuff.'

During the course of the interview, she told me several times that she had 'turned Gadd down' because she 'had a boyfriend'. She talked of her 'long-time partner' who she claimed was a 'QC' and suggested she was in an ongoing relationship.  (When I spoke to her former neighbours at the Camden council flat she'd just left after living there for around a decade, they believed her to be unemployed. They were sceptical about the existence of a boyfriend.)  'Martha' happily posed for the Mail photographer even sitting at a bus stop in the way as Martha does in Baby Reindeer while stalking Donny although we have decided not to publish them.  It was some three hours into our encounter that she began speaking openly about Richard Gadd. Initially, she claimed she had only 'met him once' but by the end of the chat, it was 'maybe four times'.  She levelled all manner of criticisms at him, claiming her 'photographic memory' gave her a detailed recall of his behaviour.  It was 9.30pm when I left 'Martha', telling her that we would publish the article in the coming days.  I was fully expecting to hear from her. I gave her my number because it is perfectly understandable that an interviewee would wish to contact the journalist who would be telling her story to the world, perhaps with additional thoughts and observations or to correct some facts.  But not within ten minutes of my departure. That's when the calls had begun. She called three times during my short drive home, all of which I answered and which lasted in total 19 minutes.  The next day there were ten calls, the one after that 14, and the day afterwards 24 all of them from a No Caller ID number on screen.  And when I failed to answer as, I have to admit I began to do as that 'No Caller ID' message kept popping up there were the rambling stream-of-consciousness messages just like the ones the fictional Martha leaves in the TV show.  Five messages totalling ten minutes on the first full day, nine totalling 20 minutes on the second, 16 totalling 53 minutes on the third.  These messages were not attacks on me, but on Richard Gadd, other staff who'd worked at the Camden pub, on Scottish MPs and their families.  Then on the Saturday there were 19 calls and, as I attempted to communicate with her by email instead, 18 voice messages were left, totalling 40 minutes.  The most abusive message came after she had belatedly read the story published in the Mail that I had worked on with feature writer Barbara Davies.  As I said, it did not name the real-life 'Martha' but it laid out the historic stalking allegations against her in Scotland. But in her view it gave too little space to her denials of those allegations.  This time the message I received was intensely personal.  'I will call the police if you ever approach me,' she said. 'I am suing you and that newspaper, and the bimbo who wrote the article with you.  I hope that's clear even to a moron like you, and I will be demanding the newspaper sack you. I don't like you, I've never liked you.'

Then came the abuse unleashed on her Facebook page looked at by ever-growing thousands of Baby Reindeer fans.  She told them I was 'fat and ugly', 'not very bright', a 'nutter', 'sick', 'a total c***' who 'wouldn't get off my phone', and falsely claimed that I had abused other journalists and 'hated' Gadd. 

The multiple postings went on well into the night, and over several days.  In person she had told me in eye-popping detail and out of the blue of a one-night stand 'with a barrister'. When we subsequently talked on the phone, she suddenly claimed her QC partner 'had died' before then saying that she lived with her 'boyfriend'.  While I had never raised her relationships for discussion, soon she was ranting on Facebook: 'I resent that wee creep neil at the daily fail asking me about previous boyfriends and current.  I felt like a rape victim on the stand.'

While the fall-out from the Mail article is certainly unusual, the abuse is water off a duck's back to me as an experienced national newspaper journalist. For her victims, however, it is easy to see how such obsessive calls, over months and years, can become unbearable.  In my case, my teenage children who happen to be fans of Baby Reindeer, were initially alarmed by my contact with Martha. Now they have taken to calling me 'Daddy Reindeer'.  In the concluding episode of Baby Reindeer, Gadd's character Donny says how bitterly he regrets the moment Martha got hold of his telephone number.  Even as I type this article, approaching midnight, the repeated 'No Caller ID' calls are beginning again...

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