TV tonight: the jawdropping story of the mother who faked her son’s illness

A shocking documentary about a woman who pretended her child was terminally ill.

Plus: isolation and horror in Australia’s desolate outback.

Here’s what to watch this evening 9pm, Channel 4 “He seemed to be allergic to the 21st century,” said journalist Paul Levie of Matthew Hayden-Johnson, a child from Torbay who, his mother, Lisa, claimed, was unable to walk, eat or breathe without medical assistance.

However, as this jawdropping documentary series shows, Matthew’s litany of disability was a fantasy maintained by Lisa.

With testimony from Matthew and Lisa themselves, it tracks a toxic fantasy as it took root, then fell apart.

Phil Harrison Continue reading...