The son of a woman branded Britain’s ‘most evil mum’ has revealed he still bears physical scars from the unnecessary surgeries he was forced to undergo as a child.
From the age of four, Matthew was forced into a wheelchair by his mother Lisa Hayden-Johnson and ‘treated’ for illnesses including cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, diabetes and food allergies.
Yet years later it emerged Hayden-Johnson, now 52, had made up the illnesses in a bid to gain publicity and make money as the mother of ‘Britain’s sickest boy’.
As part of the fabrication, the mother-of-two from Brixham in Devon connected Matthew up to an oxygen tank and met Queen Camilla, Sir Tony Blair and Simon Cowell.
Her deception, however, toppled over when health workers and school staff raised concerns with police – leading to her being imprisoned for more than three years in 2010.
Now, Matthew has described he still carries the physical scars of operations he was forced to undergo as a child on the recommendation of his mother.
‘[Putting] in the feeding tube was a surgery I had to go through under general anaesthetic,’ Matthew, now 25, described.
‘I had to have surgery for that to be implemented and I still have scars today from it because they needed to obviously remove it.’
Lisa Hayden-Johnson, 52, of Brixham, Devon, pretended her son Matthew needed a wheelchair
Matthew had an oxygen tank which was carted around on a Thomas the Tank Engine trolley
Hayden-Johnson poses with her husband and their children Matthew and Laura
This comes as a new Channel 4 documentary called Love You To Death, which follows Matthew’s ordeal of more than six years, airs at 9pm on Wednesday night.
Speaking to ITV’s This Morning, Matthew raised questions over why his mother’s fabrication slipped past doctors for years.
‘I think with medical professionals there is a lot of confusion as to why things weren’t picked up quicker,’ he said.
‘Because I went through quite a lot of surgeries for example and [operated on] without clear signs of the need to operate.’
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Despite enduring six and a half years of unnecessary medical treatment, Matthew said he doesn’t harbour anger towards what he went through – but feels his treatment could have been picked up on sooner.
‘I think there is a lot of disappointment in the time [it took to uncover what was going on],’ he said.
‘I understand that maybe the technology wasn’t there, but I also believe it could have been picked up a lot sooner, than what it had been.’
Matthew ‘cut ties’ with Hayden-Johnson ‘a couple of years ago’, adding: ‘There was a large period of time when [he] did have a relationship with [his] mum.’
Relations, however, were severed between the mother and son after Matthew saw how his sister Laura was treated by their mother.
Meanwhile, Matthew claims Hayden-Johnson failed to take accountability over what she had done.
‘You will see in the documentary that she doesn’t take almost any accountability for her actions,’ Matthew said.
‘And she mentions rekindling the relationship but it’s very sort of on our terms. It’s a difficult decision to stick by every day and people may think blood’s thicker than water.
‘But it is only me who can make that decision and stick with it every day.’
While concerns were raised by relatives, Matthew described how one medical machine used to measure glucose levels uncovered Hayden-Johnson’s deception.
‘They had a machine that they told her was faulty and that she needed a new one,’ he said.
‘They sent her a new machine but they had planted something in it where they could track the readings. And there were numerous readings coming back to say that she had retested and retested.’
Matthew, now 25, also appears in the documentary which investigates his mother’s deception
Hayden-Johnson was branded Britain’s ‘most evil mum’
Matthew’s sister Laura, 27, has nightmares featuring screams as his feeding tubes are changed
He continued: ‘The reading that showed the illness was the one that she’d used rather than the ones that were perhaps true.
‘So [it showed] the manipulation of the machines.’
The documentary also hears from Hayden-Johnson herself and Matthew’s sister Laura, now 27, as well as doctors, police and relatives about how Matthew was subjected to lengthy and enduring cruelty.
During which, the mother claimed she was ‘only guilty of putting [her] son first’.
In the trailer, Hayden-Johnson says of Matthew’s birth: ‘I always wanted to be a mum. He was such a happy baby. It was the most amazing thing.’
Hayden-Johnson then adds: ‘I’ll answer everything that you can possibly throw at me. The only thing I was guilty of was putting my son first, and I don’t regret that.’
Laura – who has complex PTSD because of nightmares featuring Matthew’s cries as his feeding tubes are changed – tells the programme: ‘I can still hear him screaming.’
During the pretence, Hayden-Johnson received free tickets to ITV’s The X Factor, thousands in cash donations and benefits, went on free cruises and lobbied for Matthew to receive a national GMTV bravery award.
Hayden-Johnson and Matthew at the Children of Courage Awards at Westminster Abbey
But she was organising a regime of medical, physiological and psychological mistreatment – amounting to round-the-clock torture for the boy.
Hayden-Johnson frequently described Matthew as ‘the most ill child in Britain’ – and he became convinced he was chronically ill.
She subjected him to 325 medical encounters – including inserting a feeding tube into his stomach under general anaesthetic. He had a total of nine GAs.
Hayden-Johnson also claimed Matthew suffered from illnesses such as diabetes, food allergies, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis and an intolerance to sunlight.
After being examined by medics in Devon, Bristol and London, she then forced Matthew to go to school in a wheelchair – even though he could run around with his friends.
Hayden-Johnson also made him wear sunglasses to protect his eyes and a bright yellow and green hat so he could be pulled to safety in case of an emergency.
She wore a green nurse’s uniform at home and filled Matthew’s bedroom with medical supplies and oxygen cylinders – with one expert telling the documentary that the room was ‘like a ward’.
Hayden-Johnson even increased his blood sugar levels so tests would back her claim that he had diabetes.
Matthew, who was six when his mother was arrested, sits on the tank in front of his sister Laura
Together, they met Royal Family members including Camilla, the then-Duchess of Cornwall, who gave him a ‘Children of Courage’ medal, and Sarah Ferguson, then-Duchess of York – as well as a series of other celebrities and the casts of BBC shows Casualty and EastEnders.
Hayden-Johnson also claimed a total of about £130,000 in benefits.
But when Matthew was six, police arrested her after health professionals and school staff met and discussed their concerns.
Following the start of an inquiry, Hayden-Johnson wrongly said she had been raped near her home.
But, just as a suspect was about to be arrested, she confessed it was another lie – and later admitted child cruelty as well as perverting the course of justice over the rape claim.
Police then discovered holiday videos of Matthew on a cruise ship running around in his swimming trunks and eating large meals.
When Hayden-Johnson was arrested, Matthew was initially taken by social services to live with foster carers.
But he was later moved back with his sister Laura to live in Sheffield with their father, a supermarket manager who was initially taken in by his wife’s deception.
Their father soon separated from Hayden-Johnson – who now has a new husband – and does not appear in the documentary.
In the present day, Matthew works in finance and Laura has a job in childcare.
When Hayden-Johnson was jailed aged 35 at Exeter Crown Court for three years and three months, judge Stephen Wildblood told her: ‘There are five adjectives which describe you.
‘Cruel, manipulative, perverse, disordered and pitiful. Your cruel conduct traversed the fundamental rules of nature and nurture.’
Hayden-Johnson was jailed in January 2010 for faking her son’s severe illnesses
Devon and Cornwall Police also said at the time that Hayden-Johnson ‘constantly denied being cruel to her son’ and had never apologised for or explained her actions.
The Press dubbed her Britain’s ‘most evil mother’ – while Detective Constable Mark Uren described her in 2009 as a ‘cruel, manipulative, evil mother who constantly lied to the medical professionals that her son was the sickest child in Britain’.
Hayden-Johnson is one of Britain’s most notable cases of Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA) or Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII), formerly known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
This is defined by the NHS as a form of child abuse where a parent or carer exaggerates, fabricates or deliberately induces physical or mental health symptoms in a child.
The new programme comes two months after another case of suspected FII was documented by the BBC about Megan Bhari, whose mother helped her fake a brain tumour to con Brits out of £400,000 to pay for trips to Disney World.
The girl founded the Believe in Magic charity aged 16 in 2011 to help ‘other’ children suffering from severe or terminal illnesses, and ran it with her mother Jean O’Brien, 72 – receiving the backing of various music stars.
But Megan died in 2018 from heart failure – which saw an inquest confirm she did not have a brain tumour after all – and investigations later claimed the girl was in fact also a victim after allegedly being duped into believing she was ill by her mother.
‘Love You To Death’ airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Wednesday night.
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