Mother of girl who died after catching measles urges people to get their children vaccinated
The mother of a 10-year-old girl who died from a rare complication of measles years after contracting the disease has urged parents to “save lives” by getting their own children vaccinated.
Becky Archer’s daughter Renae contracted measles when she was five months old – too young to be vaccinated – and went on to have her measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine at 12 months after appearing to recover.
But when she was 10, Renae developed a rare brain disease caused by her previous infection and died.
Her mother is now urging parents to make sure their own children are vaccinated to lessen the spread of disease, as it emerged the uptake of childhood vaccines for conditions like polio and measles is at its lowest level for over a decade.
Ms Archer says her daughter might not have caught measles if more children had been vaccinated.
The NHS advises parents to get their children vaccinated against a range of childhood diseases, with a programme set out to ensure maximum protection.
But in 2023/24, new data shows not a single vaccine met the target needed to ensure diseases cannot spread among children.
Ms Archer told Sky News: “Vaccination does save lives. If other children were vaccinated it might not be so widespread and Renae wouldn’t have got the measles – and she would still be here with us today.”
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“It’s really important to urge parents to get vaccinations done. Getting your child vaccinated can save other people’s lives,” Ms Archer added.
She explained how “always smiling” Renae caught measles at five months old, but was “fit and healthy” shortly afterwards.
Then, when she was 10, Ms Archer got a call “out of the blue” from the young girl’s school to say that she had suffered a seizure.
Renae with her siblings Bradley and Denver
“She continued to have seizures for around three weeks,” the mother said. “That’s when the hospital did an MRI and realised she had swelling on her brain.
“At this point they still didn’t know what was causing it. It wasn’t until maybe a month later and in that time her motor functions shut down slowly, and then she went into ICU and she was there for around a week before we found out that it was SSPE and it was going to be fatal.
“And then she passed away around a week later.”
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis – or SSPE – is a rare complication of measles which typically appears months or years after contracting the infection. It is usually fatal, and can cause intense muscle jerks and seizures.
Ms Archer described her daughter as a “happy little girl”, who was an amazing daughter and sister to Bradley and Denver.
“She was really clever – a lot older than her age.”
The mother made her plea to fellow parents as it emerged the percentage of children receiving vaccines against diseases such as polio and measles has fallen to its lowest level for more than a decade.
At least 95% of children should receive their set of vaccine doses for each illness to achieve herd immunity – which stops illnesses from transmitting across the population – according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The data shows that in 2023/24 91.9% of five-year-olds had received one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, the lowest level since 2010/11, while just 83.9% had received both doses, the lowest since 2009/10.
In 2019, nine men were jailed for raping and abusing two teenage girls living in a children’s home in Bradford.
One of the victims, Fiona Goddard, says more than 50 men raped her.
When the government began to talk about offering councils money for local inquiries, Fiona hoped Bradford would be one of the first to take up the offer. But there didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm.
The council was quick to point out that there had already been an independent case review into Fiona’s case, along with four other victims.
This, then, was Fiona’s first reasoning for wanting a national inquiry: The council felt it had done all that needed to be done. Fiona didn’t.
The Independent review, published in July 2021, found that while in the children’s home, Fiona “went missing almost on a daily basis”. The police attitude was that she could look after herself – she was “street-wise”.
There was “agreement by all agencies that Fiona was either at risk of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) or actively being sexually abused and exploited”. But “this was not addressed by any single agency”.
And “when Fiona became pregnant at the age of 15, there was little curiosity or enquiry who the father was”.
So, obvious failings were discovered.
The predictable response was that lessons had been learned and new processes put in place. But no one seemed to be held accountable.
Grooming gangs timeline: What happened, what inquiries there were and how Starmer was involved
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Grooming gangs: What happened?
Ms Goddard told Sky News: “In my serious case review she [Jane Booth, the independent chair] found seven incidences at least, in them records that she found, of them not reporting sexual abuse or rape or assault, from as young as eight years old, and one of the incidences I literally turned up covered in blood and they didn’t report it.
“That is not just misunderstanding a crime, that is making intentional decisions not to report the sexual abuse of a child.”
She adds: “Let’s not forget, these people still work within social services and the police force.”
Not only did this Independent review not satisfy Fiona, but it also didn’t begin to reflect the levels and scale of abuse Fiona had experienced outside of Bradford.
‘I literally turned up covered in blood and they didn’t report it,’ Fiona says
Asked where she was trafficked to, Fiona rattles off a list of cities.
“Blackburn, Rotherham, Rochdale, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Oldham – never Telford, I’d never even heard of Telford until it all came out if I’m honest – Nottingham, Oxford.”
Then she remembers she didn’t go to Oxford – men from Oxford came to her – but the point is made.
Local enquiries can’t possibly begin to explore the networks of men who traffic women, often down routes of drug trafficking being done by the same gangs.
Bradford Council told Sky News it contributed to the national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and published more than 70 reports where child sexual exploitation was discussed and has implemented findings from the independent local review which included Fiona’s case.
Fiona believes there are numerous connections leading back to Bradford – but victims from each city often believe their abusers are at the centre of it.
We’ve spoken to grooming victims across the country, and in 2022, a case was reopened in Humberside after a Sky News investigation, where we found diary entries, texts, photos, and school reports all indicating that teenage victims had been abused.
Read more on this story:
Telford child abuse victims speak out
What we know about grooming gangs, from the data
The women who blew whistle on Rotherham
One of them was “Anna”, who also wants a national inquiry. She believes there is a national pattern of police forces not believing victims or even criminalising them instead.
Obtaining her own police records using a Subject Access Request (SAR), Anna found officers’ attitudes towards her were similar to what we heard with Fiona in Bradford, blaming her abuse and injuries on “lifestyle choices of her own”.
Anna said: “Every time I look at my Subject Access Request, I still think it’s shocking.
“It was the same sort of terminology – lifestyle choices, liar, attention seeker, and the majority of it was negative.
“It was really rare that I’d come across something where they were actually listening or they were concerned.”
Humberside Police told us: “As the investigation is active, it is imperative we protect its integrity; as such are unable to comment on aspects of the investigation as this could impact or jeopardise any criminal or judicial proceedings.”
But it is years now since Anna first reported her abuse, and she believes the police have left it too late to gather evidence.
She told Sky News: “I think it’s either happening everywhere, or young people have been taken everywhere.
“I think the attitudes of the professionals, the police, social services, from what I’ve heard and seen, they seem very similar in every area.”
The government-commissioned rapid review by Baroness Casey is due to be published next week and is expected to call for a national inquiry into grooming gangs.
Like Anna and Fiona, many victims will welcome Sir Keir Starmer’s early response accepting the recommendation.
They will want the inquiry to probe into the operations of the perpetrators – who they are and how they are connected.
But they will also want clear accountability of the people and organisations who failed to act when they reported their abuse – and an understanding of why, so often, authorities fail to protect these vulnerable girls.
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