Amy, 29, shares her devastating true life story:
Dinner was on the table, but when I called my son Oliver, 8, he didn’t come.
I knew exactly where he’d be – out in the garden playing with our labrador, Coco.
We had adopted two dogs, four cats and six chickens, and we fostered dogs while they were waiting to be re-homed. Oliver was so gentle with them.
Since he was a toddler, he’d had behavioural problems and when he was six he was diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). It meant he’d do things we told him not to do. He struggled with change and got anxious easily.
Around animals he was less stressed. When he came in for his dinner, Coco padded in, too.
A few weeks later, Oliver was sick so I kept him off school. I called our GP who said there was a virus going around and to give him lots of fluids.
Then he got a bad headache and started losing his balance, so I took him to the hospital but was told it was nothing to worry about.
It took another week battling with doctors before he was given a CT scan.
Two hours later, my husband, Alex, and I were taken to a private room for the results.
“I’m afraid Oliver has a brain tumour,” the doctor said. “He needs emergency surgery.”
The operation took hours.
Eventually a doctor told us they’d found cancer.
“We’ve removed some of the tumour, but it’s not possible to get it all,” he said.
All they could do was try to prolong his life. Alex and I broke down, unable to process that our little boy was dying.
Oliver was to be kept in an induced coma for the next few days. We spoke to the doctors who would be treating him once he woke up.
“We can give him chemo and radiotherapy,” they said. “But it’ll only buy him six months to a year.”
It felt like we were living a nightmare.
When Oliver was awake, we had to explain to him what was happening.
“You’re very sick, but the doctors are going to make you better,” I said.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth.
“I don’t like hospital,” he said.
We took Oliver home for a while before treatment started.
He played with his brother Harry, 6, and with the animals – he took photos of them to bring to the hospital.
Meanwhile, Alex gave up his business as a taxi driver so we could have more family time together, but having no regular income was a massive strain.
We wished we had more cash to spend on doing nice things with Oliver while we still had the chance.
That’s when Sharlene, a friend of Alex’s mum, got in touch via Facebook.
She’d heard about Oliver and wanted to help by setting up a fundraising page for our son so we could use the donations for fun family days.
“That’s so kind of you,” I told Sharlene.
Alex had known Sharlene since he was eight years old – they’d played together as kids. As they got older, they grew apart but still kept in contact via social media.
Sharlene was a family friend.
I found out she now had a partner, was a mum of three and still lived nearby.
She seemed polite and family-orientated, and Alex classed her as a friend, so we believed her when she said she’d help.
She set up a page on GoFundMe, and friends, family and even strangers began donating. Soon the total soared to more than $2000. It was overwhelming.
Months passed and we watched Oliver’s condition deteriorate.
I knew the end was near so we took him home where he would be most comfortable and close to his pets. After that Coco barely left his side and our cat, Guinness, stayed close, too.
A few days later, his breathing grew shallow. I held his hand as he took his last breath.
He was only nine.
My heart shattered into a million pieces.
In a haze of grief, we began making funeral arrangements.
We wanted to give him the send off he deserved, but we didn’t have the money for it.
Then we remembered the cash Sharlene had raised. The total was over $4000 by then.
I tried to call but she didn’t answer, so I asked Alex to try.
Finally, she texted saying there was a problem withdrawing the money from the account.
“It’ll take five days,” she said.
A week later there was still no sign of it… or of Sharlene.
Frustrated, Alex called GoFundMe, and when he got off the phone, his face was ashen.
“Sharlene’s already withdrawn the money,” he said.
They sent him an email with the transactions.
It showed she’d been withdrawing money from the account for months, taking the final amount right after Oliver’s death.
“How could she?” I cried.
She’d lied to us and stolen money from our dying son.
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Alex reported Sharlene to the police.
After that we tried our hardest to put it to the back of our minds, so we could concentrate on Oliver’s funeral, which we had to pay for on a credit card.
We asked those attending to wear fancy dress, knowing Oliver would have loved that,and we played his favourite song, Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
It was the hardest day of my life.
Alex and I are devastated.
Months later, Sharlene was charged with theft.
Things got so bad that Alex suffered a mental breakdown. I helped him as best I could, but I had to find a job to pay the bills.
Money was so tight at times that Alex and I went without food so Harry could eat.
One day, Harry emptied his piggy bank. “I’ve got enough to treat us to Maccas,” he said.
It pained me that my little boy was worrying about how we’d eat.
This made Sharlene’s betrayal cut even deeper.
Eventually, the case went to court.
Sharlene McNeilly admitted theft and it was revealed she had a gambling problem.
She’d spent all of the $4250, meant for Oliver, playing online poker machine games.
She was jailed for 10 months but may only serve five.
I still can’t get my head around how someone could use our dying son for their own financial gain.
Losing Oliver left the biggest hole in our hearts. But I refuse to let what Sharlene did ruin the memories of our last few months with him.
