Melanie Leahy’s story appears in the DAILY MAIL newspaper…

Melanie’s son was an A grade student who attended grammar school.

Began smoking cannabis at 14 and it was then that he changed.

By 17 Matthew was suffering psychotic episodes.

Aged 20, he was sectioned in a hospital where his parents believed he would be safe. But he was found hanged.

Melanie Leahy came to Featureworld to gain justice for her son Matthew.  She wanted to expose what she claimed was a lack of treatment at the hospital where he died and raise awareness of the dangers of ‘harmless’ cannabis.

Any death of a young man is tragic enough but when it involves someone with a bright future ahead of him and he is a loving parent’s only child, then it is all the more devastating. Until he was 14, Matthew Leahy seemed the perfect son. Reports from his grammar schoolteachers were always excellent and Matthew was regularly described as an A grade pupil.

But then he began smoking cannabis. Mum Melanie, 48, a property manager and her ex husband Michael – they divorced when Matthew was nine but still get on well – tried everything from talking with him, taking him to the doctors and even resorted to buying home test kits (he denied he was smoking cannabis and they asked him to prove it).

By the age of 17 Matthew had turned from a confident young man into one who believed he had worms crawling over his body. It was to be the beginning of a nightmare that his parents and doctors believe was triggered by Matthew’s cannabis addiction.

Over the next few years despite training as a lifeguard and setting up an IT business, Matthew suffered repeated episodes of psychosis. When he threatened to kill himself and terrified them with psychotic outbursts his desperate parents were forced to section their son to a mental hospital.

It was a decision Melanie now bitterly regrets.

She claims doctors at the Linden Centre in Essex told her Matthew would be on 24 hour watch but just six days after Matthew, 20,  was found hanged. Incredibly he had used a ripped up pillow case. She says he had shoe laces on him and a computer charging lead – all things that should have been confiscated.  A report into his death was, she says, full of discrepancies and she says staff left in charge were undertrained. She adds there was a lack of care plans and communication errors.

But then came another blow as Melanie discovered other young people had also died at the same centre. Although recommendations had been made following their deaths, she says the centre had failed to change procedures. Had they done, she believes Matthew would still be alive.

A spokesman for North Essex Partnership, which is responsible for the Linden Centre, says: “What happened to Matthew is terrible and the family’s hurt is totally understandable.  Everyone wants answers. The Coroner can hold an Inquest where all issues are raised, and questions asked. We ask Melanie and her family to talk to us about it all, we will answer her questions and her fears, frankly and honestly. That’s in everyone’s interest.”

However, Melanie has been waiting for an inquest since Matthew’s death in November 2012 but has heard nothing.  It was this – and a drive to find out the truth and ensure Matthew’s death wasn’t in vain – that drove her to get her story out there. We placed her story in the Daily Mail where it appeared over two pages…

Read Melanie’s shocking story in the Daily Mail.

Do you want to expose a wrong-doing? If like Melanie, you don’t know where to turn, then contact us for free and confidential advice by using the form to the right of this page>>>