A heartbroken Cambridgeshire mum of a transgender teenager who took his own life is calling for a second inquest after finding out he had hormone treatment from unregulated online doctors.

Jayden Lowe, 18, paid £30 a month for private therapy after facing a six-year wait with the NHS, his inquest heard.

Married doctors Mike and Helen Webberley have both received an interim suspension by the British Medical Council pending an investigation, after they set up their unregulated gender treatment service.

Jayden received hormone treatment in the post for "a few months" before he stepped in front of a train on September 28, 2018.

Jayden's death came after he had already waited two years on the adolescent waiting list, to be seen by The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust's Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), before being told he was too old and would have to wait a further four years.

When his GP said he would put him back on a NHS list for adult services, Jayden told his mum "I can't live like this".

A mother's grief

Claire, a 49-year-old shopworker from Meldreth, Cambridgeshire, said she had no idea the online service was unregulated – or that Helen and Mike Webberley had since been suspended.

Claire also just discovered the Webberley’s online clinic GenderGP – which gave sex change hormones to children aged 12 – is moving to Spain to carry on.

Claire said: “You’d have expected this to come out at the inquest. We don’t know why it didn’t.”

Coroner Rosamund RhodesKemp was satisfied Jayden took his own life and recorded a suicide verdict at an inquest in March.

She said delays in Jayden’s treatment were a “significant factor” but added: “The precise details of what was going through his mind will never be known.”

She also heard that he had recently split up with a girlfriend.

Claire said: “Going through the inquest was traumatic but in the light that what this online clinic did was wrong, I feel we need answers and another inquest.”

When Jayden contacted his local GP he was told he was going to have to go on the adult gender treatment list and would need to wait four years to be seen.

It was then he called his mum to say he "couldn't live like that" and sought to buy hormones online, saving money from his job working in a Co-op.

Claire said: "If he had already been waiting for a few years, you can understand it. It's not going to work is it, a six-year-wait?

"It is an awful amount of time and that's when he went online, shortly before he was 18, and found this clinic in 2018 - that was the first contact he had with the Webberleys.

"It was all done by phone and internet."

His father Neil, 55, signed off the treatment in early 2018 following a phone conversation with Helen Webberley, unaware they were unregulated, Claire said.

For the most part, his family didn't know the nature of the treatment Jayden was receiving because he didn't tell them.

Nobody commented that Jayden's appearance changed much in that time, but at his inquest, his dad Neil said his son seemed more positive because he was finally receiving some treatment.

Claire said: "As far as we were concerned, he was 100 per cent that 'this is answer to my problems'. We had no idea they weren't registered.

"All we got was what Jay gave us from the internet. We wouldn't have signed for it but for the fact he was about to turn 18 and we knew he'd go in for it anyway, so my husband wanted him to think we were on his side.

"He signed it as a lifeline for Jay considering the things Jay was saying about how he felt about needing to be a boy by then.

"It was a lifeline that was thrown his way. That's how we saw it."

Claire only discovered the Webberleys had been suspended when she was contacted for comment by Cambridgeshire Live earlier this month.

She said: "I was really upset to realise they were knowingly practicing and they weren't registered properly."

(Image: Sunday Mirror)

A six-year wait for treatment

Jayden was 15 when he first went to his GP for help and he was put on the waiting list for treatment at the Tavistock Centre, the UK's only transgender specialist clinic for youngsters.

Mum Claire recalls she went along with her son for support, but quickly discovered it would be a very long time before he would get the kind of help he desperately needed.

Weeks later the family received a pack sent to them in the post warning them of the negative psychological effects of having to wait for gender treatment.

Claire said: "Even at that young age they told him that the list was so long, by the time he got to the top of the list he was likely to be too old so we knew from the beginning that the prospect was very bad.

"The centre sent a letter home to us and it stated a list of horrible things he was likely to experience, from depression and suicidal thoughts.

"And unfortunately they were right.

"For you and I to wait a couple of years for something of that magnitude would not seem great, but for somebody that young waiting between two and four years is eternity. That's a whole load of development that they are going through."

"As parents you do think you can fix everything and you can't."

Investment

The need for greater investment in child and adolescent mental health services has never been more grave.

The latest Care Quality Commission figures show the number of children visiting A&E for mental health treatment has doubled since 2010.

Last year the government said it was investing an extra £1.4bn in child mental health to address the need, but is too late for many like Jayden with more complex needs.

According to an internal report those youngsters who need gender treatment services are being "woefully" served by the UK's only specialist clinic.

Staff Governor Dr David Bell wrote in 2018: “The GIDS service as it now functions [is] not fit for purpose and children’s ends are being met in a woeful, inadequate manner and some will live on with the damaging consequences."

Jayden's mum Claire said: "What we would have liked was for him to have been given psychological help when he asked, through the Tavistock, on an ongoing basis and after a substantial period of time, progress to hormones and surgery as need was proven."

"With hindsight we definitely need more services on the NHS, but anyone setting up any medical practice in any specialist area outside the NHS needs to be monitored so closely, especially when you are dealing with mental issues.

She added: "I hear ridiculous comments from people along the lines of 'there's not enough money for people who are really ill' and yet Jay is actually dead now.

"To them it's real. He told me he was a boy and yet he had a female body. And when you think about what that would feel like it doesn't bear thinking about.

"There was a severe need on his part that wasn't met at all and it's not a lifestyle choice, it just is what you are. He needed help and he didn't get it."

(Image: Peterborough Pride)

Growing up trans in Cambridgeshire

Claire, who raised Jayden and younger sister Penny on a smallholding with husband Neil, said the couple offered a hands on upbringing.

The children spent their time among the animals, helping plant hedges, build bonfires and once, even their own swimming pool.

Jayden, a talented art student, who also had Asperger syndrome, learned mostly "through doing things" said Claire.

His sheltered upbringing and disability meant Jay struggled at the village primary school where his mum says he was "bullied mercilessly" for being different.

Things were much better when he got to high school, where he became a popular student among friends and teachers.

He was part of the 'pride club' run by a transgender teacher and Claire says the school offered a "really good support network."

He came out to his family when he was 13 via text message.

It was about this time the family found out he was also self-harming.

Claire recalls: "He was going off on a ski trip and he texted me and my husband and said: ' Mum, dad, I'm transgender I hope you understand.'

"We were in pieces because he was going on a plane.

"We were unaware that he was transgender. One of my friends that spent a lot of time with him said, 'We can't understand how we didn't see he was a boy a long time ago'.

"He kind of went there a little bit at times; to start off with he cut his hair, then it was all boy's clothes. I'm pretty sure he shaved his face when there was nothing there, but with teenagers you just go with it.

"I think he said to me that he didn't understand what it was he was feeling. I think the problems start when puberty happens and they start to develop a body, but not one that he wanted to be in."

When he was just 13 his secondary school contacted the family to say they'd been told he had been self-harming.

Despite seeking medical help, Claire said she and her husband felt helpless when to get him the psychological help he needed.

Claire said: "We spoke to Jay, he was outraged and finally showed us and we said 'this is a real sign of mental distress - you need to come to the doctor'.

"We went to the doctor and the doctor looked and he was shaken when I made Jay expose his arm, but it was very much: 'What do you want Jay? Who was known as Jess then."

"All the way along we felt it was very much led by Jay. If he told the doctors 'no I don't need any help then he didn't get any help' and he was a child.

"Children unfortunately need adult guidance but he certainly just didn't get any help really at all."

(Image: PA)

What it's like being a parent to a teenager with mental health issues

Under UK law when you reach 16 you are considered to have the capacity to consent to medical treatment.

Claire says this made it difficult for her and Neil to ensure her son was adequately cared for when he was most vulnerable.

She said: "It's madness. We took him to hospital with terrible abdominal pains, and we actually think it was all the medication he was taking.

"He absolutely loved it because he had only just turned 16 and when he got in they were like, would you like your mother to leave the room?

"And he was like 'oh yeah' and he laughed about it when I got in. He said 'you are going to love this, they want to know if I take drugs or I'm pregnant.'

"The utter power that he felt I had no control over him any more, and it's heart breaking because he needed so much more help and guidance than your average kid."

Without psychological support Jayden got increasingly more distressed over time.

When he made his first attempt on his life in 2017, he told his parents by his bedside that they "deserved a normal child."

Claire said she told her son: "'Well we don't want one, we only want you. We love you exactly as you are.'"

She recalls: "It doesn't matter a hoot ... It's what kind of person you are that matters and he was hardworking, intelligent and kind.

"He had so much good in him, but he felt he let us down."

A family's grief

The effect of Jayden's death on the family and local community has been profound.

Claire said: "Only a month before he killed himself he was texting me saying 'I love you, I love my job, you are the best mum in the world', because he had not long moved to the Co-op after I got him a job, and I just think yeah...

"My husband is a joiner and Jay was helping him when he 'left', so my poor husband has lost his help. It's really hard for him sometimes because he is struggling and it makes him miss him so much.

His mum says his sister Penny "is becoming quite introverted" and just completed her GCSEs but couldn't face going to school.

Meanwhile those who knew Jayden in the wider community have been deeply affected by his death.

Claire said: "I had a customer at the shop, who was a teacher a Long Road College, who realised who I was, he said: 'You are Jay's mum, I am so sorry. I never had the pleasure to teach your child but I'd like to say he was so popular."

She added: "I came home, and I cried out of happiness.

"I told my husband 'he did it' . He did what he needed to do in life, even in the short 18 years he had. He went from being that kid that nobody wants at the party to becoming accepted and liked and people got him for all the good bits."

Illegal health care services offered by GenderGP

In May, Wales Online reported the Webberleys, who are believed to have around 1,600 patients on their books, moved their clinic from Wales to Spain.

It came after Helen Webberley was fined £12,000 in December after being found guilty by the watchdog Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, of illegally providing healthcare services from her home under the firm Online GP Services Ltd after they were refused an NHS licence.

Dr Webberley was found to have prescribed hormones to children as young as 12 and offered advice online to patients looking to undergo gender reassignment.

It appears the couple have now moved the base of their online clinic GenderGP to Malaga.

In a statement on Gendergp.co.uk, Dr Helen Webberley writes: "Mike and I are unable to prescribe any more but we have taken safe and secure steps to make sure that nobody is without care while we wait for the NHS to step up to the mark. We have moved the management hub of GenderGP and the medical care outside of the UK until it is safe to bring it back.

"Our European doctors have been specially trained to advise and prescribe for you, once you have undergone the GenderGP appraisal pathway that has become so popular and well-respected.

"This means that your medication will continue, nobody will come to harm. The prescriptions will go to ClearChemist as usual and be delivered to you in the same way. Your GP will receive treatment summaries which will instruct them what to prescribe and what blood tests they need to do if they do not feel able to look after you by themselves.

"Let’s keep strong together and force change. Trans patients have the same right to free care as any other patient group does. Care should be provided for simple cases by your GP, more complicated cases at your local hospital, and severely complicated issues by specialist centres. Gender Dysphoria is not a complex medical problem. Your doctors should take steps to educate and inform themselves so that they can safely provide you with care. Until they do, we will help you in every way we can."

The Webberleys have been contacted for comment.

A spokeswoman from the General Medical Council said: "Dr Helen Webberley and Dr Michael Webberley are both interim suspended while the GMC investigates. The interim suspensions were imposed following separate Interim Orders Tribunals at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.

"If we think that restrictions need to be placed on a doctor’s registration while we investigate concerns, we refer the doctor to an interim orders tribunal at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), who reach an independent decision.

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"An Interim Orders Tribunal can suspend or restrict a doctor's practice while a GMC investigation continues. They would impose a restriction in cases where it may be necessary for the protection of patients and the public, or otherwise in the public interest or in the interests of the doctor."

If you need to speak to someone, Samaritans are available 24/7 by calling 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org