“My son described his NHS mental health unit as 'hell' before he was found dead.”

A mother whose son was found dead a week after being admitted to a psychiatric hospital described his experience in the British health care system as “hell on earth”.

Melanie Leahy has campaigned for more than a decade for a public inquiry into NHS mental health services in Essex after years of failings are believed to have contributed “significantly” to more than 2,000 deaths between 2020 and 2023.

In a harrowing statement to the Lampard inquiry, Ms Leahy said her life had been “utterly devastated” by the loss of her only son, aged 20, who was found hanged in his room at the Linden Centre in Chelmsford in 2012.

Three days after being admitted, Matthew told his mother that he had been drugged and raped. He died four days later. A post-mortem examination found traces of the “date rape drug GBH” in Matthew's blood, as well as four or five puncture marks in his groin area and bruising above and behind both of his ankles.

Ms Leahy told the inquest: “I fought for this place for a long time – for the wrong reasons.”

Standing in front of a framed photograph of her son, she said: “Not only has my son been taken from me, my dreams have been taken from me. My world is much darker without Matthew's light. How can it be that I will never see my son again? He cannot speak for himself or explain what happened. My son was dead within eight days of entering a so-called safe place: the Linden Centre in Chelmsford.”

Mrs Leahy said her son was “kind and funny – when he was younger he dreamed of being a comedian – and he was an excellent student”. He was a “fantastic skier” who had a natural talent for swimming and saved two women from drowning as a teenager.

Mrs Leahy said: “Matthew didn't think twice. It was a pitch black winter's night and Matthew was walking home. He heard the screams and jumped into the water. He saved them both. But he himself was not given the luxury of rescue when he needed it so badly. That makes me very angry and sad.”

As Matthew's mental health deteriorated, the family turned to “so-called professionals” and he was eventually placed in the Linden Centre with a diagnosis of delusional disorder.

Ms Leahy said: “After eight days in the care of the state, my son died. I will never get over this. He spent the last eight days of his life in a place he called 'hell' and now I truly believe it was hell on earth. Malnourished, overmedicated, scared, bleeding, bruised, raped, injected multiple times, ignored and terrified.”

She said there was “no record of any staff offering him comfort in the last days of his life”. Mrs Leahy told the inquest she had been advised not to visit her son on the ward “to give him time to settle in”.

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She added: “I will live with this guilt for the rest of my life – that I listened to so-called professionals and wasn't there when my son needed me most.”

The inquest into Matthew's death in 2015 found serious failings, including that he had no care plan but staff forged and backdated one after his death, Matthew's records were incomplete or missing and he was not assigned a key worker.

A jury concluded that Matthew had been the victim of “a series of failings and missed opportunities over a prolonged period by those entrusted with his care.” The coroner reached a narrative conclusion.

Mrs Leahy said the last 12 years had left her “broken” and “with no sense of normality”. She said her son's death and its aftermath had left her with a lifelong distrust of the NHS. “I have only been to a doctor once since Matthew died and I dread the day I have to go to one again.”

She said her son's computer, which he took with him into the security cell, was never found. “The cause of Matthew's death was at the centre of my life and yet… my life is completely destroyed. I miss my son so much, it hurts. I will never be normal again.”

Further memorial statements will be heard by the commission of inquiry on Wednesday and next week. Further hearings will be held virtually in November. Evidence hearings will not begin until next year.