Love You To Death: Lisa Hayden-Johnson was labelled ‘Britain’s most evil mum’, but what happened to her son and where is she now?

TV audiences have an ongoing fascination with true crime, and there's no shortage of documentaries and dramatisations of criminal wrongdoing to keep up with appetites for the genre.

When crimes have been committed against a child and the mother is found to be responsible, the public find these particularly jaw-dropping.

In the BBC's recent documentary The Mother of All Cons, those tuning in couldn't believe the lengths Jean O'Brien went to in order to fabricate her daughter, Megan Bhari's illness.

Following in the show's footsteps, a new channel 4 documentary, Love You To Death, investigates the case of Lisa Hayden-Johnson and how she came to be labelled "Britain's most evil mum."

Airing from August 19, the three-part series looks at how Lisa created a vast number of claims that her son Matthew was incredibly ill. This included maintaining the lies that he was unable to walk, eat or breathe without assistance.

We look at what Lisa did to her child, and where they both are now in the aftermath of her shocking deceit being uncovered.

What did Lisa Hayden-Johnson do?

When Lisa Hayden-Jones' son Matthew was born prematurely in 2001, he temporarily needed a tube for feeding.

However, he made a full recovery and could have been discharged home to live a normal life, except Lisa spent the next six years insisting he was very unwell.

She claimed that Matthew was allergic to nearly all food, diabetic, had cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis, suffered from a neurological disorder which reduced his mobility, and was intolerant to sunlight.

To continue the myth that her son suffered from diabetes, Lisa spiked his urine samples with glucose before testing, and even his own father believed in his apparent conditions and that he couldn't eat or swallow food.

Matthew was examined by doctors in Bristol and at Great Ormond Street hospital, and they couldn't find anything wrong with him.

However, Lisa countered their findings by falsely claiming that she was a qualified nurse and was the best person to judge how ill her son was. If medical professionals questioned her about Matthew's conditions, she threatened to sue them.

Matthew later had surgery at the age of four to fit a permanent feeding tube directly into his stomach. By the time he went to school, he attended in a wheelchair fitted with oxygen bottles.

Matthew also believed in his illnesses, while Lisa collected £130,000 in benefits after claiming £20,000 a year in disability living allowance over a period of just over six years.

She also received gifts from children's charities including a new car and a cruise in Tenerife. Lisa was given free X Factor tickets and sold her story to magazines - she even accompanied Matthew to collect a Children of Courage award at Downing Street.

However, in 2007, Matthew's paediatrician voiced suspicions that his illnesses had continued for too long without an official diagnosis.

Medical professionals insisted that Matthew needed more detailed tests and Lisa's story began to unravel.

In order to cancel a hospital visit, Lisa claimed she had been sexually assaulted, harming herself to make the made up attack seem real. An arrest was nearly made over her story.

Lisa Hayden-Johnson was eventually arrested in October 2007. By this time, Matthew had been subjected to 325 medical actions.

When the case went to court, the BBC reports that the prosecution told Lisa that her "sadistic fabrication of non-existent symptoms" amounted to "24-hour-a-day torture" for her child.

During Lisa's trial, the court heard that she often referred to Matthew as "the most ill child in Britain" and Matthew, as a result, was "convinced that he was chronically and seriously ill."

Lisa's defence team told the court she was suffering from conditions formerly known as Munchausen syndrome and Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

Now called Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII), the condition is something health, social care, and safeguarding professionals say is a rare form of child abuse where somebody exaggerates or deliberately causes sickness in a person under their care.

Two years after her arrest, Lisa pleaded guilty to charges of child cruelty and perverting the course of justice. She was sentenced to three years and three months in prison.

Where is Lisa Hayden-Johnson now?

Now aged 50 and remarried, Lisa does appear in the documentary, but doesn't show her face. Giving a reason for her anonymity, Lisa says, "I live in quite a small community, and I don’t want this to upset my life as I have it. And I want to be able to move on."

Unsurprisingly, she lost custody of both her children - she also has a daughter called Laura who is two years older than Matthew. Laura chose to rebuild a relationship with her mother when she was released from prison.

When she hit her teens, Laura went to live with Lisa, but the two fell into difficulty. Laura was suffering from PTSD as a result of witnessing what her mum did to her brother.

"I was getting that mother attention that I needed," Laura tells The Telegraph of going to live with Lisa.

However, Lisa's mental health went into decline when her daughter was living with her. "I would push her around in this wheelchair and become her carer," Laura explains, adding, "Every time we got into an argument… she would regress into this five-year-old state."

"She claimed that she had developed a regression disorder. She would be watching Peppa Pig, trying to self-harm." The relationship broke down Laura no longer speaks to Lisa.

Matthew appears in the documentary - he is now 25 and works in finance. When he was first removed from his mother's care, he was initially put into foster care while his father was questioned.

When it was ascertained that his father knew nothing about Lisa fabricating his illnesses, Matthew was returned to his care and reunited with Laura. Shortly afterwards, the family relocated from Devon to Sheffield to have a fresh start.

Matthew also regained some contact with his mother, but not the same level as his sister, but has since cut contact altogether and says he has no plans to ever see Lisa again.

He says this is because Lisa refuses to change, and in the documentary she continues to acknowledge any wrongdoing.

"How can I be Britain’s most evil mother?" she asks, adding, "The only thing I was guilty of was putting my son first and fighting his battle, which is what I did. And I don’t regret that."

While he no longer wants any contact with Lisa, Matthew forgives her and wishes her well. He says, "I forgive her. What other option do I have? I can’t hold the hate over her. I wish her the best. I just want to move on with my life."

Love You To Death airs on Channel 4 from August 19.