My mum trolled Madeleine McCann's parents for years. Then she took her life

"To Kate and Gerry, you will be hated by millions for the rest of your miserable, evil, conniving lives, have a nice day," read just one of Brenda Leyland's 4000+ tweets. Please note: this story discusses suicide.

At first, Ben didn’t think anything of his mum’s obsession with Kate and Gerry McCann.

At least it kept her occupied in her later middle-age, he thought. 

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Brenda Leyland was 'doorstopped' by a news reporter outside her house. Image: Sky News

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Brenda was a self-proclaimed "investigative journalist"

Like many others around the world, Ben's mum was invested in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The three-year-old's 2007 disappearance was all anyone was talking about at the time and has become one of the most high-profile missing persons cases in history. 

Brenda also had a personal interest in the case as she lived in Leicestershire, about 20km away from where the McCann’s lived.

The 65-year-old was a self-proclaimed “investigative journalist” who had a vivid imagination, so was highly susceptible to becoming absorbed in such a mysterious case.

She often rattled off conspiracy theories about what had happened to the preschooler, Ben recalled to The Guardian this month.

Some days she was convinced that parental negligence by the McCanns was to blame, other days she suspected even worse.

It wasn't until 2014, after Ben had moved to the US, that he learnt the full extent of his mother’s obsession with the case. 

“I’m in trouble,” Brenda said to him over the phone. 

This is the sort of call you’d expect a child to make to their parent. But from the other side of the Atlantic, Ben’s mum was admitting her own wrongdoing. 

At first, he didn’t know what she meant but then remembered she had called him earlier that day and mentioned that a TV journalist questioned her about the McCanns - at her home.

“What’s going on?” Ben replied.

She told him her Twitter handle and let him trawl through her account to work it out himself.

Four days later, she took her own life.

Ben is now a recovery and life coach. Image: @benjamin_leyland

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An anonymous account and 4000+ Tweets

Ben knew his mother spent a lot of her time online, but he thought she was mostly playing card games like Solitaire.

His reaction to finding out what she was really doing was: “Holy s**t.”

Brenda had dedicated years of her life to anonymously trolling the McCanns online under the Twitter handle @sweepyface.

In her eyes, they deserved all the public scrutiny they were facing about being responsible for their missing daughter. And she wasn’t just skeptical about their involvement, she was adamant that they were solely to blame. 

Some of her scathing Tweets, of which there were over 4,000, read: 

“Q 'How long must the McCanns suffer? Answer 'For the rest of their miserable lives'.”

“I think Kate #mccann sees herself as a modern day Eva Peron, beautiful, suffering, instead of a booze filled nymphomaniac.”

“Hate [is] a powerful emotion, it is a compliment to Maddie that we ‘hate’ her parents who betrayed her.”

“You can move to France, anywhere, but social media is everywhere, our memories are long”

“To Kate and Gerry, you will be hated by millions for the rest of your miserable, evil, conniving lives, have a nice day.”

One of Brenda's Tweets directed at the McCanns. Image: Twitter / @sweepyface

A reporter confronted Brenda outside her home

Her attacks were vicious at best and defamatory at worst, which is why one morning in September 2014 a Sky News journalist confronted Brenda outside her home.

The reporter questioned her about her Twitter account but she declined to comment. 

In that part of the clip, which can be viewed here, Brenda appears calm and collected as she smiles and brushes off the journalist's questions. 

She was then told that a file containing her Tweets had been passed onto the police and was going to form part of an inquiry into a wider ‘campaign of abuse’ against the McCanns. 

Her demeanour changed.

Suddenly, cracks started to form in her tough facade. 

“Well, that’s fair enough,” she said nonchalantly - but her face twitched and something had obviously clicked inside her.

She’d been found out. 

The private, inner-world she hid so well was set to be exposed. 

And her parasocial, abusive relationship with the McCanns was going to come under criminal investigation, too.

“Was she panicked because she realised she had done something wrong or because she had been found out?” The Guardian reporter asks Ben.

Ben replies that he believes that his mum realised she had “gotten a little bit carried away”. 

“I think she lost sight of [the McCann’s] humanity, and they were just the target of [her]‘investigation’.”

Ben, who was working in law at the time, went into crisis management mode and was intent on “making this go away.” 

But he never got the chance to help her as a couple of days later, the story broke on Sky News. 

Brenda was subjected to ruthless treatment on social media and before she knew it, she was the target of online abuse.

The tables had turned and the troll became the trolled. 

Ben became increasingly anxious when all of his attempts to call his mum went unanswered and he began to fear the worst. His suspicions were soon confirmed and her body was found in a nearby hotel room.

Ben speaking on The Only One in the Room podcast. Image: @benjamin_leyland

Ben hopes his mum's story can inspire others to have more empathy

Since her suicide, Ben, now 38, has been left to reconcile his mum’s actions with the woman he knew. 

From a young age, Ben suspected that his mother was unwell. She’d leave for weeks at a time to “get better”, most likely admitting herself into hospitals. 

But when she returned, she’d only speak about all the rich and fabulous people she’d met during her stay. There were so many stories that Ben “doesn’t even know where to start” when remembering them.

She used to get wined and dined by Elton John before he was famous, apparently. She’d also lived the high life with a Saudi prince who had a shopping addiction and would gift her luxurious things. 

Some of her stories seemed more realistic though, like Ben’s grandfather supposedly being a celebrated war veteran. Only years later did Ben discover that there was absolutely no record of this. 

Aside from being a compulsive liar, Ben said that their relationship was also troubled.

After his parents got divorced, he became the centre of his mother’s world. She was possessive, demanding of his attention and constantly made him feel as if he wasn’t good enough for her. 

In turn, Ben constantly tried to win his mum's affection, something that only led to a dangerously co-dependent relationship. 

He moved to the US in the hopes of putting some space between them but this only led her to become fixated on something else: the Madeleine McCann case.

Looking back, Ben recognises that his mum was far from perfect. But he still struggles to understand exactly what motivated her to go after the McCanns. 

“The question is why are they like that,” he said. “What has happened that has created people who are only able to find joy in displaying their resentments in this way?”

It’s the age-old question of nature versus nurture. Are trolls born or bred?

On one hand, Ben says his mum’s childhood trauma and abuse may have played a part. 

"I think she saw in Madeleine, a lost, neglected, abandoned girl that in many ways reflected who she was or the way she felt about herself,” he said.

But putting individual issues aside, there are also systemic factors such as economic inequality and inadequate mental health support that enable the rise of online trolls. 

These issues exacerbate social alienation and leave people, who are already marginalised, feeling even more resentful, afraid and lost. 

At the end of the day, Ben deeply misses his mum and hopes her story can inspire people to have more understanding towards others and the driving forces behind why they do what they do. 

Originally published as My mum trolled Madeleine McCann's parents for years. Then she took her life