transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:04] Tortoise Investigates.

Speaker 2:
[00:14] I've been thinking so much about what went on inside those walls. You walk past the car park where I can only guess that Chloe parked out with her mum or her dad, left the car, crossed the road, walked in, pressed the buzzer, and then in they went. From the age of 18, this is where Chloe, Jess's half-sister, would come for her counselling sessions. It's a boxy, three-story NHS building, not far from the centre of her local town. When Chloe first starts coming here, it isn't a great success. Chloe doesn't really click with the community mental health nurse she's been paired with. But after a year or so, she begins having sessions with a new counsellor, one she really likes. Each time, for about an hour, she sits in her room inside this building and tells the woman everything. I should tell you now by way of a warning. In November 2023, before we began reporting this story, Chloe died by suicide. She was 23 years old. Chloe's mental health had been fragile for years. According to Chloe's mom, Debbie, there were times when she would sort of disappear into herself, lying in bed for days, not speaking, not engaging with anyone. So this counselor she began seeing in the autumn of 2019 feels like a new start, a source of hope.

Speaker 3:
[01:56] She trusted her. She thought she were all right, she thought she were nice. She was quite responsive. And she d usually try and get Chloe an appointment as quick as she could if she thought she needed one.

Speaker 2:
[02:07] Their sessions aren't always regular. At one stage, Chloe is discharged and then referred back again. In the end, Jennifer counsels Chloe for roughly a year. But after this, she's still in the background. Someone Chloe can ask for help if she needs to. So this is where things are at when in August 2022, Jess arrives on the scene searching for her biological father. For Chloe, at that point, Jennifer is simply someone she trusts. But that's about to change.

Speaker 3:
[02:43] I don't know. I just thought it's a bit of a coincidence if it's the same name.

Speaker 2:
[02:49] The news breaks slowly. First, Debbie learns of Jess's existence. A few days pass. Details come out in fragments. Debbie asks more questions. And then it hits her. The woman who's been counselling her vulnerable daughter is Jess's birth mother. Without realising it, Chloe has been sharing her deepest anxieties with a woman who'd had a secret relationship with her father, a woman who'd had his baby, abandoned it, and never told her soul.

Speaker 4:
[03:35] She just kept saying she felt violated. That's the word that she kept using. And she were angry, because she'd trusted Jennifer. And not only that, but the fact that dad had allowed that to happen. So that meant that, really, did he care about her at all? What more important to him, keeping his secrets covered up or putting his daughter in a situation that she shouldn't have been in? Having this woman that he'd had an affair with canceling it. So I think it kind of shook her, because obviously she trusted my dad and she trusted Jennifer.

Speaker 3:
[04:16] She really liked her and I thought that she cared about her.

Speaker 2:
[04:21] Jess has shown me a message Chloe sends her soon afterwards. It says, I feel so betrayed. She would have known who I am as well. I feel so angry and hurt. She should never have seen me. I'm Lucy Greenwell and from Tortoise Investigates and The Observer, you're listening to Foundling. Episode 5, Betrayal. Maybe Jennifer didn't know who Chloe was. Maybe Jennifer didn't make the connection that she knew Chloe's family much more intimately than she let on. Like, maybe she didn't know that.

Speaker 3:
[05:07] What would you say? Yeah, she did. She must have known who Chloe was. There's no way that she didn't. I 110% believe that she knew who Chloe was.

Speaker 2:
[05:16] Chloe's family is convinced that Jennifer knew who she was and how their lives were connected. But what if she didn't? This is such an important question to try and answer. So let's look at the evidence. We know that when Chloe is first seen by the adult NHS mental health team, she's briefly treated by someone else. But in 2019, when Chloe's 19, Jennifer takes over her care. Jennifer was and still is in a senior role at the clinic. So she manages referrals from the GP's and supervises other therapists. She also has some of her own patients. Chloe's family has shared Chloe's medical notes with me. And in the notes, I can see that on the 17th September, 2019, Chloe's mental health nurse is off sick. And so Jennifer covers for her. That seems to be their first meeting. And perhaps it's supposed to be a one-off. But one week later, a letter is sent to Chloe's GP, which says that Jennifer is now Chloe's new counsellor, and it confirms their next two appointments. And yet Chloe has an unusual surname, one her family believe Jennifer would have instantly recognised.

Speaker 3:
[06:36] Chloe's surname is not really very common. I mean, yeah, there are other people in where we lived with that name, but it isn't a very common name.

Speaker 2:
[06:50] I've scoured the electoral register and there are very few people living in the town who share this Germanic surname. If it rang any kind of bell for Jennifer, and she wanted to double-check whether Chloe was related to anyone she knew, she had only to look at Chloe's medical notes. These notes tell a devastating story of her struggle with mental health, beginning with her self-harming at the age of 13. When you turn 18, your folder goes with you from the Youth Service to the Adult Mental Health Team. We've seen Chloe's folder, years of records and documents, a tower of paper heavy enough that you need both hands to lift it. Everything about her life, her struggles, her family, it's all in there. As the Service Manager, Jennifer would have seen this folder before she ever met Chloe. And as her counselor, she surely would have spent some time reading it.

Speaker 3:
[07:53] She would have seen from Chloe's notes that, who her parents were, it would have been on her notes.

Speaker 2:
[08:01] Not just her father's surname, but his first name too, Louis.

Speaker 3:
[08:06] And again, his first name's not really. I mean, it might be more common now, but it's not that common. And the spelling of it was kind of unusual for a person his age.

Speaker 2:
[08:22] Is it possible that Jennifer had completely forgotten this name so that when her eyes scanned it, nothing registered? To me, it's a stretch. If you've had a relationship with someone, let alone had their baby, it's hard to imagine you'd ever forget their name, no matter how many decades have passed.

Speaker 3:
[08:44] She's gone into that room at some of the lowest points in her life when she's been really vulnerable, not feeling well at all, and she don't entirely remember what she's said to her, what's been discussed.

Speaker 2:
[08:58] Chloe might not remember, but after each appointment, Jennifer writes a few lines for Chloe's records, what they talked about, how Chloe seemed. Looking at the records, a lot comes up. Chloe's childhood, her teenage years, her parents' unhappy relationship, their failings and foibles, everything. After one session, Jennifer writes that her parents are arguing all the time, snapping at each other. On another occasion, Jennifer notes that she had asked Chloe to write a letter to her parents telling them how they make her feel, how the atmosphere in their house is making her feel. These regular counselling sessions between Jennifer and Chloe appear to come to an end in the summer of 2020, two years before Chloe would discover that Jennifer was the mother of her half-sister. Looking at Chloe's records, it seems to peter out. The last note from Jennifer is in August 2020, when Chloe hadn't turned up to her appointment. Jennifer texts her to set up a session the following week. If that happened, there's no record of it. In August 2022, Chloe and her family try to make sense of what they've found out. The deception.

Speaker 3:
[10:28] It's Chloe not knowing, and that's what Chloe, that's what affected her. It's the fact that she knew, and Chloe didn't know.

Speaker 2:
[10:36] The questions.

Speaker 4:
[10:37] Why did she do it? Why did she want to cancel Chloe?

Speaker 2:
[10:40] And from Chloe's brother, Josh, the anger.

Speaker 5:
[10:44] It's sadistic. And to imagine that at your lowest point, you had that person with the fingers in your brain. I can't imagine how that felt for her.

Speaker 2:
[10:57] I've put this to Jennifer. Why did she treat Chloe even though she knew of their connection? But I've had no response. Perhaps she took on Chloe's case out of a misjudged kindness, a confidence born of experience that she was good at her job and believed she could help. And there was no way anyone would guess that their lives were intertwined, right? This professional glitch would surely never be exposed. Or was her decision driven by curiosity, a way of finding out more about Lewis and the big family he went on to have with Debbie?

Speaker 6:
[11:38] Just another, another thing. I didn't think the story could get any more unbelievable. She said she'd told her things that, you know, if she'd have known, she would never have said. She just couldn't get her head around it at all, like.

Speaker 2:
[11:54] When Jess finds out about the connection between her birth mother and her half sister, Chloe, she's furious.

Speaker 6:
[12:03] That was the most angry I had been at her, at Jennifer, throughout the whole process. Like, that is disgusting to do that. Like, knowing exactly who she is, to try and counsel her through that, listen to her upbringing, her stories of her dad, our dad, and to continue to counsel that, even though knowing that's a conflict of interest, knowing exactly she's had a baby with her dad. She was too delicate for something like that to happen to her. She really trusted in the counseling that she was getting.

Speaker 2:
[12:42] For months, Chloe does nothing, in part because she's sure Jennifer will be in serious trouble for what she's done and she feels bad. But Chloe is training to become a mental health nurse herself, and so she knows from her studies that what Jennifer has done is against the rules. So finally, seven months later, she acts. In the spring of 2023, she finds an NHS online complaint form and she writes in, Chloe tells them that her counselor turned out to be intimately connected to her life and that Jennifer knew who she was and yet treated her anyway.

Speaker 7:
[13:25] It sounds to me like an overwhelming conflict of interest. I can't really see how that could be just dismissed.

Speaker 2:
[13:34] Kevin Gourney is a psychologist and a scientist, and like Jennifer, a registered nurse. He's now 80, but he's known as a pioneer of mental health nursing in the UK. I'm hoping he can help me understand the rules. I've made a start by reading the latest nursing code of conduct published in 2015.

Speaker 7:
[13:57] You won't find anything to cover this situation.

Speaker 2:
[14:01] It's true. There's nothing in there about this exact situation, because let's be honest, what's happened here is pretty unusual.

Speaker 7:
[14:10] What you will find is you'll find overall topics about standards, which will, I think, be relevant to this situation. It sounds very much to me as if there was a serious breach of the code.

Speaker 2:
[14:29] But why do you say that? Why are you so sure?

Speaker 7:
[14:32] Why am I so sure? Because there's clearly a conflict of interest which hasn't been disclosed.

Speaker 2:
[14:38] Professional boundaries in mental health settings are considered critical. There has to be a clear separation between personal and professional roles. And the therapist is supposed to have the patient's best interests at heart. A conflict of interest is anything that gets in the way of that, another relationship, a personal connection, something that means they can't be fully impartial. Jennifer had two conflicts. She had a hidden connection to Chloe's family, which Chloe knew nothing about, and she had a personal stake in a situation. She had had a baby with Chloe's father. Now even if, at that stage, she wasn't certain the baby was Lewis's, his paternity must have still been a possibility. So it's still a close connection. Either of these things might shape her questions to Chloe and influence decisions about her care.

Speaker 7:
[15:39] Conflicts of interest occur all the time in healthcare because if you're in a local community, you know people. Now if you know somebody well, but you think you can still do a professional job, you have to disclose to that person what the conflict of interest is and what should be done about it. Both parties have to decide whether it's a reasonable thing to do to proceed. Sometimes it might be that you go to the practice for your flu jab and the nurse giving the flu jab is somebody you know. And they say, well, we know each other. Is it all right if I give you the flu jab? So you'll probably say, yes, of course it's all right.

Speaker 2:
[16:22] But this wasn't a flu jab.

Speaker 7:
[16:24] It's unethical because you've got one person with all the power.

Speaker 2:
[16:29] Is that what it is?

Speaker 7:
[16:30] Yes. Isn't it a situation where one person knows and the other person doesn't? Isn't that a simple description of what's gone on, that the nurse who's giving the counselling has all the power and all the knowledge? And it will be emotionally conflicted as well.

Speaker 2:
[16:50] Before reporting this story, I hadn't realised how fundamental this point is. Every psychologist and mental health clinician that I've spoken to knows this ethical framework inside out. And every single year they have to complete refresher training to keep those skills sharp. It's drilled in. They all say the same thing. If the medical records of anyone you know, however tenuously, your parents at the same school, you once work with their husband, you know their cousin well, comes on to your desk, you report it immediately and recuse yourself. Two months later, Derbyshire NHS Trust responds to Chloe.

Speaker 8:
[17:38] The Chief Executive writes, I'd like to offer you my sincere apologies for the upset and any distress caused. The investigators' view and that of the Assistant Director of Safeguarding Adults is that there was no conflict of interest at that time. Please can I assure you that there is no indication of any inappropriate actions or clinical decisions made by Jennifer.

Speaker 2:
[18:04] To Chloe and her family, this sounds a lot like a dismissal.

Speaker 4:
[18:08] It's not good enough saying it's not a conflict of interest and just sort of batting her off. It's not a good enough answer.

Speaker 2:
[18:17] For her sister Kim, nothing in the letter speaks to Chloe's sense that her trust has been betrayed.

Speaker 4:
[18:23] Even just acknowledgement, like genuine acknowledgement, rather than just being brushed off. Acknowledgement that it was wrong. She shouldn't have been counselling her. Even that would have felt better than what we got.

Speaker 2:
[18:44] Chloe doesn't appeal the decision. Instead, she tries as best she can to move on. Six months pass after that NHS response in the summer of 2023. And Chloe seems to be in a good place. She's busy with college. She's living with her boyfriend. And they're trying to buy a house.

Speaker 5:
[19:04] She'd never really been in a better position than what she was, it seemed, anyway. She'd just finished the uni course. She were doing really well with that. She was throwing ideas around about starting a family and what not.

Speaker 6:
[19:18] She was in a really good place. I remember her telling me that she'd bought a new car. You know, she'd just finished her degree.

Speaker 2:
[19:27] On Friday the 10th of November, 2023, Chloe takes her own life. Despite her long history of mental health struggles, her death comes as a huge shock.

Speaker 4:
[19:44] The other times she'd been down and we knew she were down, whereas this was just completely out of blue.

Speaker 2:
[19:54] For years, the family has existed in a constant state of worry and vigilance when it comes to Chloe. But in late 2023, they thought things were OK.

Speaker 3:
[20:06] And she'd message me saying, just saying that they'd had their offer accepted and I'd just said, you know, that's brilliant and whatever. And that was the last text I had, offer.

Speaker 2:
[20:25] After Chloe's death, Debbie and Kim write to the NHS to complain. They mention something really important, something that, when I heard it, struck me as evidence that Jennifer did remember Lewis. Debbie would accompany Chloe to her appointments. Actually, she'd regularly join Chloe for the last few minutes of the session. But Debbie doesn't drive, so the two of them would often be dropped off and picked up by Lewis. Sometimes he'd be there in the waiting area of the clinic when they emerged from their session.

Speaker 3:
[21:01] On one occasion, quite early on, when she started seeing Chloe, her dad came and picked us up and he was in the waiting room and she spoke to him. They both spoke to one another and said hello.

Speaker 2:
[21:17] Debbie remembers this meeting between Jennifer and Lewis quite clearly because she wondered how he seemed to know her. This is almost certainly at some point in late 2019, soon after Jennifer has started treating Chloe.

Speaker 3:
[21:32] And I actually said to him, who is she? And he said she was a friend of one of his mates.

Speaker 2:
[21:43] Chloe had also mentioned this meeting in her complaint. In the NHS response to Chloe, the Trust acknowledged that, yes, Lewis and Jennifer did greet each other politely in that waiting room.

Speaker 8:
[21:57] In the letter sent to Kim and Debbie after Chloe's death, the Trust references an earlier investigation, but concludes only that ...on reflection, a point of learning is that Jennifer could have raised this situation and discussed this with her manager. And here's where it starts to look odd. They maintain, ...the care and treatment provided was in line with expected Trust standards and there was no conflict of interest. They acknowledge that, yes, Jennifer should have discussed the meeting with her manager. But they add, ...it is not felt that this would have changed the decision for Jennifer to continue to support Chloe. So, hold on, the NHS acknowledges that, yes, Jennifer did seem to know Chloe's father, and greeted him in the waiting area.

Speaker 2:
[22:47] But no, there isn't a conflict of interest. And they're saying that even if they'd known this, nothing would have changed for Chloe. Jennifer still would have treated her. There's more. This wasn't the only meeting between Jennifer and Louis during the period when Jennifer was counselling Chloe.

Speaker 3:
[23:11] It had actually been to her house and dropped a Christmas card.

Speaker 2:
[23:15] How do you know?

Speaker 3:
[23:16] Because it told me.

Speaker 4:
[23:17] How do you know where she lived?

Speaker 3:
[23:19] Because she only lives just down from where she used to live, doesn't she? I don't know.

Speaker 4:
[23:22] How do you know that? Do you know what I mean? It doesn't add up, does it?

Speaker 2:
[23:25] For the family, this dropping off of the Christmas card in 2019 is more evidence that both Louis and Jennifer let Chloe down by not acknowledging their connection.

Speaker 3:
[23:37] She invited him in for coffee, apparently. And when I said, well, what were you doing that for? And he said, I wanted to thank for being good with Chloe.

Speaker 2:
[23:47] Louis appears not to be troubled that someone he has known intimately is his daughter's therapist. I wanted to ask him about this. Did he worry about how it might affect Chloe if she was ever to find out? Oh, hi, hello, is that Louis? But when I initially managed to get hold of him, he says he doesn't want to talk to me for the podcast. After Chloe's death, her mother and sister write to the professional body that regulates nurses, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, or NMC. In its response, the NMC insists there's no evidence Jennifer didn't adhere to their professional standards of honesty and integrity.

Speaker 1:
[24:36] We don't have evidence which clearly indicates that she was aware of the personal connection between her and Chloe while she was involved in Chloe's care and failed to disclose this.

Speaker 2:
[24:48] Except the NHS did know that Jennifer had spoken to Louis in the waiting area. Chloe's family are baffled by the official response.

Speaker 3:
[24:59] At the end of the day, she's taking a massive risk, isn't she?

Speaker 4:
[25:02] Well, you would think so. You'd think it were a massive risk. You'd think she would put in a job at risk. But from responses that we've had, they don't give a shit, do they?

Speaker 2:
[25:13] The way Kim and Debbie see it, Jennifer's treatment of Chloe destroyed her trust in the medical profession.

Speaker 4:
[25:21] That's cut off now. That NHS access that she didn't want to go around that route anymore. So to Chloe, that's just gone.

Speaker 3:
[25:31] I don't think I've still fully accepted it, to be honest. There's still a part of me that thinks this can't be happening, it's not real.

Speaker 4:
[25:40] It was just my biggest fear, that it really ended up happening, and it was the worst thing that could have happened. And I think, I think I'll always be angry, because you're constantly thinking, could it have ended differently, had things been different?

Speaker 2:
[26:02] There's never one reason someone takes their life, and we're not attributing Chloe's death to what happened with her counselling. But for her family, this is a part of her story, and they still feel that they haven't had answers. So I contacted Derbyshire NHS Trust. What did they have to say about the fact that Jennifer knew Chloe's father and didn't disclose it? It seems likely Jennifer always knew that Louis was the father of the baby she abandoned in the 80s. And if she didn't know for certain, she must have at least suspected. So what did the Trust think of that conflict of interest? And why has no action been taken? They responded with, We appreciate these are very difficult circumstances for all involved and extend our condolences to Chloe's family following her sad loss. The Trust is unable to discuss individual circumstances due to patient and staff confidentiality. We sent two pages detailing everything we've been told to the Nursing and Midwifery Council too, asking for their response. In their reply, they didn't address them, but offered their condolences to Chloe's family and said they wouldn't comment on individual cases.

Speaker 6:
[27:21] I didn't know how to, to, the dynamics and how to deal with it because I was, I really, really wanted to be there for them.

Speaker 2:
[27:29] Chloe was part of Jess's life for just 17 months. Navigating her loss has been really hard. Jess has gained dozens of family members in recent years, but she struggled to establish relationships with many of them. With Chloe and Kim, it was different. Jess felt she had gained two sisters. But when Chloe dies, Jess is conscious that she isn't, in fact, a member of their family.

Speaker 6:
[27:57] I didn't want to overstep the mark and be too much and yeah, I didn't know what to do or say really. Where's the boundaries? Because I'm new to the scene, so how does that work?

Speaker 2:
[28:13] In the end, the decision is made for her. No one tells Jess about Chloe's funeral. She finds out sometime afterwards. For Jess, that might be the hardest part of her search to come to terms with. How much has been broken in the process? How many lives have been upended by her simple desire to know where she came from? Next time on Foundling.

Speaker 6:
[28:44] I said, actually, before I boil the kettle, can you just tell me what the hell this is about because you're making me panic so bad.

Speaker 4:
[28:52] She goes, that's your mom.

Speaker 6:
[28:53] That's exactly what my mom done.

Speaker 5:
[28:57] She had plenty of opportunity really, didn't she, to tell me and she never did.

Speaker 6:
[29:04] I can hear them talking. She just wants the attention. I'd love to be able to just take a pill and then forget that they even existed. I don't care at this point.

Speaker 2:
[29:17] Foundling is reported by me, Lucy Greenwell. It's written by me and Katie Gunning, who's also the series producer. The theme music was composed by Tom Kinsella. Sound design and additional music was by Rowan Bishop. Podcast artwork is by Blythe Walker Sibthorp. The development producer was Jess Swinburne. The narrative editor was Gary Marshall. The editor is Jasper Corbett. Hi, it's Lucy. Before you go, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Because we've had such an overwhelming response to the series, we're going to be making a special bonus episode for Observer subscribers, where we will put your questions directly to Jess. If there's anything you'd like to ask her or us, please send us an email or a voice note to foundling at observer.co.uk. We'd love to hear from you. We'll be back next week for our final episode.