Parents Who Could Not Control Daughter’s Eating Take Responsibility For Her Death

Parents Malcolm and Jan, share their tragic story of their 20-year-old daughter who died when she was taken away from them because they could not control her eating making. She is one of the youngest people to die from obesity in Britain.

Mirror reports:

Samantha Packham weighed 40 stone when her heart stopped as she was being lifted in a hospital hoist in front of her horrified mum. Despite three years in social services care, Samantha had failed to lose any weight, with one foster family even feeding her takeaway kebabs.

Parents Malcolm and Jan, who admit they badly failed their daughter, have agreed to highlight her tragic death in the Sunday People as a warning to other families who let their kids guzzle endlessly.

Malcolm, 44, said: “We take ­responsibility – we hold our hands up and admit we messed up. We should have set her ­boundaries with food but we didn’t and now we’ve paid the worst price. We know Sammy would still be here if she had been healthier but it’s not easy trying to stop someone from eating if they don’t want to.”

Samantha was just eight when Malcolm and Jan ­realised she had a problem. Malcolm, 44, said: “She would eat her dinner and then she would just go to the fridge and help ­herself to more food. We tried to tell her she’d just had her dinner and didn’t need anything else but she would fly into a rage. She would swear and once she even pulled the hinges off the doors, she was that strong at the age of eight. We took her to the doctors but they did absolutely nothing.”

When Samantha was 14, social services at Brighton and Hove Council got involved after a family friend reported concerns.

Malcolm said: “They told us they had received a report of neglect. We couldn’t believe it. We know we made some mistakes, but we’d always tried our best and we loved Sammy to pieces. At first they gave us advice on a healthy eating regime for Sammy but it was impossible stopping her from going out and buying food in secret.

It was like an eating disorder. She loved food. We tried our best, but there’s only so much you can do. If someone wants to eat, they will always find a way. She would buy crisps and chocolate bars on her way home from school and eat them in secret. Maybe we should have stopped her pocket money but that didn’t feel like the right thing.”

Malcolm and Jan were told that social services were seeking a court order to remove Samantha from their care.

Malcolm said: “It was absolutely awful. We had a solicitor to fight for us but we lost. I will never forget the day they came to collect her. We were all crying and Samantha was ­screaming, begging them not to take her away. All the neighbours came out. It was horrendous.”

Although Malcolm and Jan admit they made mistakes, they feel their daughter was let down by social services.