Believe in Magic - Episode 2: Sleuths

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Megan fundraises for treatment abroad. Her condition deteriorates while in hospital in America. When anonymous sleuths discover she’s not where she claims, who will believe them?

You're about to listen to brand new believe in magic if you're in the UK the whole series is available right now on BBC sounds The only way I can explain and justify why I set up a fake profile is in case I was wrong in case that I'd missed something So you posted under under service, yeah We worried about just ramifications for you? Yeah, yeah. And I didn't post publicly because I didn't want to stop the fundraising if I got it terribly, terribly wrong. As soon as I heard about this story, I knew I needed to speak with Sarah Smith. The producer Ruth managed to track her down and now we're sitting across from her in a meeting room in Wigan.

Sarah Smith is not her real name, of course. Are you recording now? So, Joanna Ashcraft, have three children and I work for our family business. She's in her early 40s and spends her days juggling work and kids. But I can tell that she's obsessed with believe in magic. She walks into our interview carrying a folder of printouts and screen grabs. Proof, she says, of the strangest story we'll ever hear. It would take up, you know, time in the evenings and time in the day.

It became all consuming where I was, never off my phone, constantly apologising to my husband and children. And I suppose that is an element in my personality that just was like a dog with a bone. I'm Jamie Bartlett. This is Believe in Magic, episode two for Slooths. After Meghan Barley set up Believe in magic to grant wishes to seriously ill children, she'd revealed to supporters that she needed life-saving medical treatment in the US. But in the background, Joe, or Sarah Smith, was asking questions about whether Meghan was really ill.

Megan's friends and supporters were dismayed. Many, like Lucy Petagini, had seen first-hand how unwell Megan was and how hard she worked. Joe's questions were the last thing Megan needed. From what Meg used to say was this woman was a pain in the ass, she was very demanding. She started up this, I'd call it, a witch hunt kind of thing, asking questions like, oh, Meg's poorly, can we have your address, which hospital are you in? For months, Meg and Jean tried to ignore Joe and her alter ego, Sarah Smith.

As more and more people became aware of Joe's questions, Megan's mum Jean decided to message the believe in magic supporters. This has broken us more than I can even begin to describe. The disgusting abuse and accusation of trolls and the pain is intolerable. Joe First Met Megana a believe in magic event in 2013. They became Facebook friends. Every now and again, Joe saw online that believe in magic was growing and was even supported by one direction. Good for Meg, she thought. But then, in early 2015, Joe saw the

Facebook post that set this whole story in motion. Megan urgently needed to raise 120,000 pounds for something called proton beam radiotherapy in America. I saw help save Meg. So I was like, wow, Megan's in a lot of trouble. Megan's really seriously ill. Help save Meg. It sounds like that, you know, Megan's life needs saving. Joe watched the money pour in. Within two days, Jean and Meg hit their target of 120,000 pounds. But 48 hours later, Jean posted again with a dramatic development. Unfortunately, we've learned that Meg's MRI

was much worse than we thought, or could have even imagined. The tumor in her brain has not only grown in a very difficult location, but developed tentacles, which have wrapped itself around one of the two main arteries in Meg's brain and the primary blood supply to her brain. It was too dangerous to operate. Megan Jean were forced to cancel the proton beam therapy and promised to return the money raised.

Supporters were devastated by the news. When I first read tentacles wrapping themselves around an artery, I thought that can't be right. Then I did some digging and found out there are certain kinds of brain tumors that can affect the blood supply to the brain. Maybe that's what gene was trying to convey. From the outside though, it looked off.

Joe couldn't let it lie. 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 a doctor is, where the hospital is, and there was no information. Is that unusual for this kind of thing? Well, it might not be unusual, but it made me start looking. And when she starts looking for more information, Jo finds that Megan Jean raised £15,000 a couple of years earlier.

Also for treatment in America. Meg is very poorly and needs your help to get to America for treatment. Read the Facebook page. That time, Megan Jean said they needed to go to America to see if doctors could try and make her better. Megan also said that after treatment, she wanted to go to Disney World. And I'm thinking, right, you're asking for 15,000 pounds

to go to America and get better. Who asks then what we're going to take in Disney while we're there? Because you're appealing for money to get better because you need money. To say 15,000 to get better is very, very vague. You know, why not 20th-hour? You know, what is it? How are you getting better? I have to admit, knowing how expensive medical bills can be in America, £15,000 doesn't sound that excessive.

And given that Meghan dedicated her life to creating magical experiences for sick children, why not go to Disney and create some memories for herself? But for Joe, the idea that someone would ask the public for money when they could afford to go to Disney was at the very least questionable. Er, I was a bit suspicious, so I just wanted to... I suppose you're making sure that the money is going to the right place, and by doing that is by asking questions. And why did that matter to you at that point? I don't want people being ripped off, especially not in the cancer community. The cancer

community means a lot to Joe. Back in 2011 her two-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer. We got told that he had neuroblastoma and given very very little a'r ymdodd yn ymdodd yn ymdodd yn ymdodd yn fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r f and now you've got this child that needs all kinds of care because mentally and physically it's very, very unwell. Neuroblastoma is a rare and deadly cancer of the nervous system. When Joe went online, she found there was hope after all, but it was very expensive. A specific treatment in America was showing 20% increase in survival, which was massive. For that, Joe had to raise £250,000, far more money than she had. I didn't know how I was going to get it, but I just knew that he was worth everything

that we could possibly give him, because it looked unlikely that he was going to survive there. So it was a case of what do we do? Fundraising days, Marathon's news interviews. She dragged her son to events right after a round of chemotherapy, because that would squeeze a few more pounds out of people. Joe was prepared to do anything. What we would like to have done is spend every moment with our children in the privacy,

but what we actually have to do was say, right, whatever it takes to raise this money, we have to know that we are giving him his best chance of survival. It worked. Joe raised the money and her son had the treatment. And thankfully, that worked too. So when she first saw Meg's online fundraisers, she was concerned and also curious.

She was interested to see how it compared to what she'd had to go through. When her son was first diagnosed with neuroblastoma, Joe had gone online and found support groups to help her get through the most difficult days. She became close to a small group of three other parents whose children also had neuroblastoma. They shared advice. They talked. They kept each other's spirits up. So when Jo first had doubts about Meg and Jean's story, this was the group she turned to.

All of them had raised money online for their children's treatment. And they all privately thought there was something off about Meg's appeals. The strange language, the lack of detail, no hospital names or doctors. When they'd been fundraising for their kids' treatment, they shared these details with anyone who asked. After all, if people were donating money, didn't they deserve to know? One of the group is a man who asked us to keep his name out of this. He lost his son to neuroblastoma in 2013. We'll call him White Hat. White Hat is the name of hackers give themselves when they use their skills for good. Oh White Hat is a bit of a geek. He's measured. Careful, serious.

So he said to me, be very, very careful. If you put your head above the parapet and ask these questions and say anything publicly, you know, and she is seriously ill. You will get shot. You know, this is two people that look to most like they are doing an amazing amount of God for sick children. So he was nervous about me being vocal about my concerns. And I agreed. They decided to watch and wait until one day in 2016, White Hat sends Joe a message. He says, Are you sat down, Joanna? Megan is seriously unwell in hospital in America. Jean is by her bedside and they're raising money

for treatment online. The tumour has caused severe immunodeficiency for Meg. She was admitted to hospital on July 12th with sepsis and multiple infections. She now has 16 sources of infection. Her blood has literally become acidic with infection. Unfortunately, we recently heard the very worrying news that her liver has now been affected, which puts her in a very dangerous position. Her immune system is basically non-existent right now.

The fundraising page read, After spending so many tens of thousands of pounds to keep Meg alive, they're now out of money to continue paying for this crucial care. This girl and her mom have done so much for so many families. Despite Meg's health. Let's send her some magic for a change. Help spread the word. I was like, right, no, no, this is never going to stop. This is going to be annually. You know, why is nobody else thinking that this is really, really art? Meg's turn for magic is the third fundraising drive for Meg in just four years.

We collectively said, we won't want to drop, we'll find out this time. No matter the cost, this little group will call them the sluts, decide to answer that one simple question. Does Megan have a brain tumor or not? Joe starts off small. She sends a message to the Meg's turn for Magic Facebook page.

Hi, I'd love to send Megan something just like she sends all the poorly children, which hospital to do I send it to. To which I got reply, thanks so much, but Megan's at three different hospitals at the moment, so it's very, very difficult. She decides to go further and sets up the Sarah Smith Facebook account. This is when she sends a message to a believe in magic supporter. Do you have any evidence that Megan is seriously ill? Oh Sarah. They replied.

I don't even know what to say. I can't for one second believe they're not being truthful. Undeterred, Joe looks up the charity itself and finds a phone number for one of the trustees who she then calls pretending to be a journalist looking to write a story and raise awareness about Meg's appeals. I said, hi, I've seen Megyn's appeal and it sounds like where are you ringing from. I'm a journalist, I want to do a story. I don't want to talk to any journalists, I said, but we want to publicize, we want to get the money, get that this is how I'm not speaking to anybody, it's nothing to do with me. Put the phone down. Just as Joe and her fellow sleuth are discussing what to do next, Jean posts an update from America. Megan's condition is deteriorating.

I wish we had better news to tell you, but it's been a very hard week. Meg's white blood cell count went through the roof. She's still completely neutropenic. The infections her body has been dealing with include MRSA, osteomyelitis, MSSA, E. coli, lactic acidosis, multiple staff infections and many others too. Meg is still on constant oxygen and fitting in more than 29 hours of IVs in every 24-hour period. We were both also like to say our huge thanks to everyone who donated to the GoFundMe page. Right now we desperately need to be able to focus on keeping Meg as safe and as stable as possible

without panicking around the clock about every penny spent. Please get this page out to as many people as possible. Asking questions is getting the sleuths nowhere. So White Hat has an idea. A completely different way to get to the truth. He decides to send an email to Meg's mother Jean embedded with a small piece of computer code. If Jean opens the email, that code will reveal her location. White Hat hits send. Moments later, Jean opens the email.

She's in Florida, not in a hospital, but here. Disney's animal kingdom villas, cadarney village, part of Disney World, Orlando, Florida. What are you thinking at this point? 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 Arang, the cadarney, they're in there without really thinking it through. And they put me through to the room and Jean answered. So I said, I just think Megan played. And she said, sorry, I said it's Megan there, please. She said, who's calling? She's asleep at the moment. Oh, I think that's thank you.

And I put the phone down. So then I go back to the group and I said, Megan's there, Megan's in that room. I'm ringing back. So I rang back and gene answered again. I said, is Megan awake yet, please? Pardon? I said, is Megan awake yet? Oh, Megan's not here. Megan's seriously on, in Meghan's awake yet. Oh, Meghan's not here.

Meghan's seriously on well. Meghan's in hospital. I said, oh, so you're not in Disney? And she said, no, I'm not in Disney. Meghan's in hospital. Who is this? And then I put the phone down. But you've phoned Disney.

And she said she's not in Disney. Yeah. So for me, right, we've got it now. The sloths have caught Megan Jean at Disney World when they were telling their supporters they were in hospital. They reveal who they really are. The cancer community thinks Megan is hooked up to IVs and barely making it through the night.

The sloths imagine her swimming at the hotel's spring pools, eating at the Disney themed restaurants and watching giraffe's loap past her hotel window. Just as they're about to tell the world what they've discovered, a video lands in Joe's inbox. Do you like that as you craft it's mech? It was a, staring right at Joe. As you can see we obviously have four more important things to be doing with disgusting actulations that you've seen as one of the worst ones of our whole lives. She's hooked up to oxygen and she shows Joe her pick line, a catheter inserted into the vein so drugs can be pumped directly into her blood supply. I'm very sorry to say that if you don't, you'll be hearing from us very, very soon.

You have completely never stayed to death and broke it up. According to Megan Jean, Meg's doctors are allowing her to stay at Disney but she's receiving home hospital care. Just as though she were actually in a hospital. The medics have turned her cadani villa room into a medical centre. So all of these people that are supporting her and that have been told that she's in a Disney holiday village despite you seeing these updates and now you believe that she's got one-to-one care with nurses because of our

our special relationship with Disney. Like even just saying it is comical. So that and you still believe that, okay, right? Well, we don't. So I'm ready. This is going on too long. Need our life back. It's gone too far to drop it now. By this time, exposing Jean and Meg has become almost a full-time job for Joe. She contacts anyone she can think of to tell them what she's found out. Doctors, the charity commission, even the police. I would get reply saying Mrs Ashkaffel, well aware of your concerns. We're looking into them, we're looking into them, we're looking into them, I'd be like, hi, it's me again. Now I've seen this and now I've seen that. Did you feel like they ever did anything?

It was sound like they were looking into it, but nothing actually ever came of it. So you saw, did you lose faith in, sort of, official channels or what? Yeah, it just made me have to try harder to give them more proof and more proof. Just as the sleuths are giving up hope of convincing people, an update from Jean gives them an idea. These past few weeks have been so difficult. However, we do have for the first time in over 20 weeks a chance to possibly hopefully get that home. It really has been the most terrifying nightmare, but we so

hope being home will be a big comfort. For months, Megan Jean have been writing how Megan is so ill that she'll need to be flown home in a low altitude air ambulance. But the sleuth snow that in the past, Megan Jean have travelled across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2, a luxury ocean liner. As soon as they see Jean's update, the sleuths look up the Queen Mary 2 sailing times. Sure enough, the ship left New York the day before and is heading towards Southampton Docks. But it's not enough to know they've sailed home. They need to see where the Megan looks as ill as she claimed. So they do something no one in the cancer community would ever expect.

They decide to spend a thousand pounds to hire a private investigator and wait. Believe in Magic is a BBC studio's podcast. It's presented by me, Jamie Bartlett. The series producer is Ruth Mayer. The producer is Lucy Greenwell. Music by Jeremy Wormsley. Sound design by Peregrine Andrews. The executive producer is in his bow and you