‘The bottom fell out of our world’ – coping with childhood cancer in a cost of living crisis
When Emma’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a brain tumour, money was the last thing on her mind.
With the tumour wrapped around his optic nerve – meaning it can never be removed – the kind and sociable toddler will need treatment on and off for the next 18 years of his life.
“The bottom just fell out of our world, we thought we were never going to be happy again,” she told Sky News.
After 18 months of gruelling chemotherapy, the family now face the stark reality of coping with Seb’s cancer amid a rising cost of living and an ever-diminishing household income.
“Initially you think the diagnosis is horrendous emotionally but then it hits you, financially how do we make this work?” Emma Grimwood-Bird said.
Seb, with mum Emma
The cost of cancer in children
Charity Young Lives Vs Cancer estimates cancer in children and young people costs families an extra £730 a month.
Seb is fed using a feeding tube but is allergic to the hospital’s feed solution, so the family have to buy him high-calorie food that is easily blendable.
“I noticed the other day that something that used to cost me £8 – a cream and salmon thing – has gone up to £9.95,” Emma said.
“We probably spend an extra £30 or £40 a week on what he needs.
“For the first time, I am having to take things out of the basket and accommodate the rest of us around his nutritional needs.
“Which we are happy to do but it’s not something we have ever had to do before.”
‘How are we going to manage?’
The family also face a £300-a-month increase on their mortgage come January, as well as an electricity bill that has almost doubled, rising from £120 to £217.
“We know our mortgage is going up, but when we get to January we are not sure how it’s going to play out. I think we’re just putting our heads in the sand and saying, ‘We’ll manage, we’ll manage’.
“But now it’s getting to the point where we are thinking, how are we going to manage?”
While Seb is stable at the moment, she said the “fear is always there” that he may get sicker, and either she or her husband will have to leave their job to care for him.
Emma has already used up her allotted sick pay, meaning any additional time off is unpaid.
Seb, with his family – including his younger brother Will
“I thought there would be some sort of support if you can no longer work if your child is sick. But there is no protection at all.
“We have really tried to keep our employers on side, but there is only so far they will go. “
They get £300-a-month disability living allowance, which just about covers the cost of the additional car they need to take Seb to his appointments – at a hospital an hour away.
“I never have I thought about I would be someone that would receive benefits ever,” she said.
“But we didn’t ask that for our son to get a brain tumour and as much as you are dealing with the emotional side of it, you have to have the financial conversations as well.”
Rachel Kirby-Rider, chief executive of Young Lives vs Cancer, said: “We are witnessing the worst cost of living crisis we have seen in recent memory, and the young cancer patients and families we support are having to deal with the uncontrollable costs of cancer alongside the fear a cancer diagnosis brings.
“They are left having to make impossible choices, deciding between putting the heating on to keep their child warm or paying for petrol to get to hospital for treatment; getting the food their child desperately craves while on chemotherapy or buying a warm coat.”
The charity has introduced a crisis fund, offering grants to families and young people in greatest need this winter, alongside offering emotional support.
Seb, with mum Emma, in hospital
Less than 100 cases a year
For Katherine Lichten, from Suffolk, it’s a familiar story.
Their “whole world was turned upside down” when three-year-old Teddy, feared initially to need surgery for appendicitis, was found to have a cancerous mass which had metastasised on his hips, spine and bone marrow.
Teddy’s cancer is rare – there are less than 100 cases a year in the UK and only 40% of those diagnosed survive five years.
The train-obsessed little boy – whose favourite thing to do is go to the local station and spot the engines – has now been isolated from his friends due to infection concerns.
Katherine said: “He’s very curious, he likes to know what’s going on, and he likes to ask the nurses what medication it is – you can’t get anything by him.”
Teddy, post diagnosis
Unable to return to work
Katherine was due to return to work in January at the end of her maternity leave for Teddy’s eight-month-old brother Rupert.
But because of Teddy’s cancer, she won’t be able to go back until this time next year.
“My only income is £140-a-month child benefit,” she said.
As their income goes down, their costs have gone up – including their mortgage, which is now up £200 a month.
“Our budget for food has stayed the same but every week we are getting less and less for our money,” she said.
Teddy, three, at the start of treatment
“It’s very difficult to do food shopping when you have got a child who is seriously ill.”
Teddy also requires multiple hospital visits, which costs the family £12 a day on public transport, or £30 per journey if they need to take a more urgent taxi.
The family is fundraising for medical treatment abroad, hoping to get him specialised treatment in the US.
But the weakening of the pound against the dollar means they need to raise even more to be successful.
Teddy with mum Katherine, and younger brother Rupert
It’s Never You
The lack of support for parents of children with cancer is what spurred Ceri Menai-Davis to set up his charity, It’s Never You.
His six-year-old son, Hugh, died from a rare form of cancer in September last year.
He said parents are forced to rely heavily on charities – including his own, which has an app to provide advice for those “at the coalface”.
Currently, parents can claim universal credit (if they don’t have above a certain amount in savings or a job), disability living allowance, carers allowance and 18 weeks unpaid leave taken in four-week chunks across the year.
Hugh inspired his parents to set up a charity to give support to parents
“You are constantly fighting against this waterfall,” he said.
“I’m now the other side of it – the sad side of it – but the stress of it, and then having no money on top.
“Having been there, I know the cost of everything and what you want to do for your child.
“The three things we have to do to look after our child is to feed them, heat them and take them to hospital. And those three key elements have gone up in price by at least 20%. And for some parents, there is no support, so it’s adding an extra burden to an already awful time.”
Sharon Holland sits surrounded by fresh flowers as she scrolls through photos on her phone of her daughter, Chloe.
Warning: This article contains references to suicide and domestic abuse
Beautiful, poised, Chloe stares back at her from the screen. She was a fun, independent young women – until she wasn’t.
Caught up in an abusive relationship with a former partner, who her mother calls a “monster”, Chloe became a shadow of her former self.
Sharon never met him as Chloe kept the ongoing relationship a secret but she had suspicions when her daughter, who had moved out of home, retreated from her friends and family.
“As far as I knew, they’d split up in September 2022 and she was living happily in Southampton,” she says.
But Sharon began to suspect the relationship might be back on after she spotted her daughter liking some of her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook posts.
Chloe was full of life before she met her abuser
“I saw a few hearts on his pictures, and thought ‘here we go’. But she would always deny it and say she would never get back with him. Of course, she was lying to me.”
Increasingly isolated from her loved ones, Chloe’s only communication with Sharon was through text messages and the occasional phone call.
“She turned up at people’s houses with black eyes and made excuses for marks around her neck and everything else,” says Sharon. “No one told me.”
Chloe took her own life in February 2023.
Her family is not alone in their grief. There are now more victims of domestic abuse who take their own life, than those who are killed by their partners.
Between April 2022 to March 2023, there were 93 people who took their own lives following domestic abuse. A 29% rise compared to the previous year.
Sharon and Sky News’ Ashna Hurynag
Assaulted with a dumbbell and handed a knife
Marc Masterton, Chloe’s boyfriend at the time, was routinely assaulting her, controlling her appearance, isolating her from friends and family, belittling her and encouraging her to self-harm.
On one occasion after he assaulted her with a dumbbell, Chloe threatened to take her own life.
In response, Masterton handed her a knife.
“She said on a few occasions, his eyes went from blue to black and it terrified her,” Sharon says.
The abuse was happening in plain sight – in hotels, hostels and on public transport. Chloe eventually chose to report the abuse to police. But two weeks later, she attempted to take her own life.
At the intensive care unit she was taken to before she died, Sharon didn’t leave her bedside. It was here she learnt from a police officer about Chloe’s testimony a fortnight before.
Chloe and her mother, Sharon
Chloe’s evidence
“They told me she’d done a video statement for over two hours and were investigating him,” Sharon says.
“I’ve watched it. She was crying for lots of it and was distraught. I was devastated and angry. He was telling her to take her life. He was giving her knives up against her neck and then saying, you do it.”
Her evidence led to the conviction of her abuser. Masterton admitted coercive and controlling behaviour and was jailed for three years, nine months.
Justice which, Sharon feels, fell well below her expectations.
“We needed to get over four years for him to go on this dangerous person’s list, so he could be monitored as high risk,” she adds.
Sharon is now calling for tougher sentences for those convicted of coercive control.
The current maximum sentence a perpetrator can get for the offence is five years, but Sharon points to countries like France where the maximum sentence is 10 years.
“No amount of years is going to bring her back… But he needed to get more than that.”
The overlooked victims of a growing crisis
It’s incredibly rare to get a criminal investigation in these cases, says Hazel Mercer from the national charity, Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse.
“Most of the families that come to us where there’s been a suicide as result of domestic abuse, the biggest issue for them is the lack of acknowledgement of what has happened to their loved one. Is there going to be any justice that says this domestic abuse was a crime against this person who’s now dead?
“They ask, is anything like that going to happen, and at the moment, nine times out of ten, the answer is no.”
Hazel Mercer advocates for families who have a lost a loved one after domestic abuse
Hazel works with families who feel a lack of “professional curiosity” by authorities means critical connections are often missed.
“When we have a homicide, resources are put into it, there is a real investigation… For a suicide, we seldom see that investigative desire or professional curiosity to look behind that suicide and why it happened.”
Fighting for change
The Crown Prosecution Service is investigating the link between suicide and domestic abuse more closely.
Efforts are being made to educate police and prosecutors on coercive control’s deadly trajectory after the high-profile death of mother Kiena Dawes, who was abused before she died by suicide on 22 July 2022.
Sky News has learnt the CPS is actively assessing similar cases, but Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown says “it isn’t straightforward”.
Kiena Dawes was abused before she died by suicide
“Invariably because of the nature of coercive and controlling behaviour, a lot of that offending happens in private. So without the victim, that’s quite difficult,” she says.
They are working with police to unpick the detail of the abuse a victim suffered in the lead up to their death. Collating evidence from family, friends or even doctors if the victim’s medical records show there’s been a history of physical violence.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown
The Ministry of Justice told Sky News: “This government is committed to halving violence against women and girls. The independent sentencing review is looking at sentences for offences primarily committed against them.
“Victims of controlling and coercive behaviour will also now be better protected through a new law that ensures more abusers are subject to joined-up management by police and probation.”
For Sharon, her campaign is a way of honouring her daughter’s memory. “I won’t stop till I get justice for Chloe,” she says.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
A man has been convicted of drugging and raping 10 women in London and China between 2019 and 2023.
Chinese PhD student Zhenhao Zou, 28, filmed nine of the attacks as “souvenirs”, and kept a trophy box of women’s belongings, jurors in his trial were told.
Warning: This article contains details of sexual offences
He was accused in court of drugging and raping three women in London and seven in China between 2019 and 2023.
Jurors at Inner London Crown Court found him guilty of 11 charges of rape against 10 women, including two who have been identified and another eight who have yet to be traced.
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Moment police arrest student guilty of rape
The mechanical engineering student was also convicted of three counts of voyeurism, 10 of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one of false imprisonment and three of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
He was cleared of two further counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image and one of possession of MDMA with intent to commit a sexual offence.
The trial heard Zou kept a ‘lost property box’ full of women’s belongings. Pic: Met Police
The jury has not reached verdicts on four counts of possession of drugs with intent to commit a sexual offence.
Zou – who first moved to Belfast in 2017 to study mechanical engineering at Queen’s University before moving to London in 2019 – showed no visible reaction as the verdicts were read out in court.
Catherine Farrelly KC, prosecuting, told jurors during the trial that Zou “presents as a smart and charming young man” but is “also a persistent sexual predator; a voyeur and a rapist”.
A discreet camera belonging to Zou. Pic: Met Police
Zou, who also used the name Pakho online, befriended fellow Chinese students on WeChat and dating apps, before inviting them for drinks and drugging them at his flats in London or an unknown location in China, the court heard.
The jury heard how he would secretly film his attacks using a mobile device and hidden cameras, and was shown evidence found on SD cards at his accommodation of him raping unconscious women in London and in China.
Senior Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor Saira Pike thanked the “incredibly strong and brave” women who came forward to report his “heinous” crimes.
“Zou is a serial rapist and a danger to women,” she said.
“In some instances, we have not been able to identify Zou’s victims. Without knowing who these women are, we have not been able to support them through a deeply distressing period of time.
“We have always been determined to seek justice for both the unidentified and identified victims in this case.”
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