Heartbroken Alison Lapper has revealed her son died of an ‘accidental overdose’ after years of being tormented by bullies because of her disability.
Parys Lapper, who suffered from depression and anxiety, was found dead in a hotel in Worthing last month.His body was placed on cushions on the floor of his home before he was cremated so Alison, who was born without any arms and shortened legs, could lie beside him one last time.
The grieving mum spent eight hours with her 19-year-old son, crying, hugging and kissing his hair.
She says Parys, who featured in the BBC documentary series Child of Our Time, had been “out of control” before his death.

Alison with Parys, aged 14 (
Image: CAMERA PRESS/Andrew Hasson)

The trouble teen was caught in a “vicious circle” of using drugs to escape his mental issues – which only made them worse.
However Alison, 54, does not want her son to be “remembered as a junkie” – but instead says the drugs were a “consequence of what he had been though”.
The artist from Brighton, who posed for an iconic Trafalgar Square plinth when she was pregnant, has told of how Parys’s drug use was sparked by his trauma with school bullies who mocked him because Alison was “a crip”.

Alison’s determination to care for her son despite her disabilities was hailed inspirational (
Image: THE MIRROR)

He turned from a confident, young boy brimming with energy into a reserved shadow of his former self.
At the age of 13, he told Alison he didn’t want her to attend parents’ evenings because of the reaction from his classmates.
“We were the show,” she told The Sunday Times .
“The next day Parys would go in and they would rip pieces out of him.”
Three years later, his behaviour and drug use had become so erratic that Alison was forced to have him taken into care, aged 16.

Alison tried to help her son, but he was “out of control” (
Image: Daily Mirror)

She continued to visit him regularly and spoke to him on the phone just three days before his death.
And she believed he had been on the road to recovery and he was looking forward to starting a new job.
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But his life was tragically cut short in the hotel room.
Parys had also felt pressurised by the body images people posted on social media and Alison felt “bloody useless” not being able to help him.

The pair pictured in 2003 (
Image: Daily Mirror)

But it was while attending high school that Parys’s life took a dark turn and he was a target because of his mum’s appearance.

Parys was found dead in a Worthing hotel (
Image: Daily Mirror)