The parents of Leah Croucher spoke to This Morning hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard on Tuesday
Leah Croucher’s dad has made a heartbreaking admission.
The disappearance of the 19-year-old became one of Britain’s highest-profile missing person cases, after she vanished on her way to work in Milton Keynes on February 15, 2019. Leah’s body was eventually found more than three years later, just minutes from where she was last seen.
However, while the family were desperately searching for answers, they were wrongly targeted by online sleuths, and accused of being involved in her death. Leah’s parents, John and Claire, have now chosen to tell their story in a new documentary that shares the devastating impact that the case has had on their lives.
Ahead of the documentary airing tonight (Tuesday, October 13) at 9pm on U&W, John and Claire appeared on the This Morning sofa, where they spoke to hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard about the ordeal they’ve faced. During the interview, John spoke about his son, Haydon, who struggled to cope in the aftermath of his sister’s disappearance.
Haydon was Leah’s half-brother, who took his own life in November 2019 – nine months after Leah’s disappearance. On today’s This Morning, Cat Deeley said: “The other person it hit really hard was Haydon. When all the investigations started happening, he handed out leaflets, he tried his very, very best, but it affected him mentally in the end, didn’t it?”
John then explained how close Haydon was to his sister, Leah. “He just couldn’t cope. It destroyed him mentally, and the people played with him online. They tormented him, and it was just horrific to watch. There was no getting through to Haydon to try and calm him down.
“He suffered from bipolar, which made him worse, [and] paranoia. He was getting so angry, and I had to step back for Claire’s sake, for my own sake, to try and find Leah. It was like, ‘Haydon, you’re going to have to go and get help, [your] mum’s going to have to help you.'”
He went on: “Because his mother’s also a victim in all of this, which people forget. They all look at me and Claire, but Haydon has a mother. She’s suffering. How do you console a mother who has to read this evil stuff online about her son.”
Ben Shephard then said: “Tragically, it was too much for Haydon in the end as well, wasn’t it? So, you lost Leah and you lost Haydon. At that stage, you still didn’t know what had happened to Leah.”
Speaking about his daughter’s funeral, John later shared: “We had months to plan Leah’s funeral. If you lose a loved one, it’s days to weeks. Ours was months because of forensic tests that had to be done on Leah.
“We couldn’t dress Leah like you would dress your loved one. We’re never going to be able to give her a wedding, we’re never going to be able to do the normal things a family could do. So, I said to Claire, because Claire was so upset, ‘We can’t dress her, so let’s dress her coffin. Let’s make this the biggest thing we can ever do for her. Our princess. Let’s give her a princess funeral.’ And that’s what we did.”
Mourners lined the streets for Leah’s funeral back in 2023, which Claire said was “heartwarming”. She added: “It was crazy how many people came to pay their respects.”
This Morning airs weekdays on ITV at 10am, while The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent’s Nightmare will air on Tuesday (October 13) and Wednesday (October 14) at 9pm on U&W
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