A MUM-of-three was arrested for "poisoning" her children and diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome - before doctors discovered she was suffering from a hidden condition. Laura Turner, 44, rushed her kids to A&E in a paranoid panic in June 2022, convinced they'd consumed her sleeping tablets. The mum was later informed she was being arrested on suspicion of attempting to poison her own children and was diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome - a condition where someone pretends to be ill or deliberately produces symptoms of illness in themselves.
It wasn't until months later that doctors said her intense paranoia had been caused by a rare reaction to psychiatric drugs. Laura's life was thrown into turmoil after a beauty treatment gone wrong in November 2021 left her with constant pain in her mouth and teeth. The mum was given antidepressants to address the pain, which she claims left her unable to sleep, in a permanent state of anxiety and suicidal.
The previously happy and healthy mum-of-three began acting out of character, her husband Duncan told MyLondon : “There was this extreme agitation and panic all the time.” On June 1 2022, Laura was gripped by a haze of delusion and became convinced that her children had ingested her sleeping pills. Though the kids, aged two, six and eight at the time, showed no symptoms of having done so, Laura rushed them to A&E.
Having called her husband, Laura left her local hospital on her own and attempted to take her own life, suffering a broken c.