The mum of a 20-year-old Brit who died after botched weight loss surgery in Turkey has said it is her life’s mission to get justice for her daughter – and to prevent others suffering the same fate.
Morgan Ribeiro flew to Turkey in January 2024 after being lured by social media adverts offering cheap gastric band surgery. After the operation on January 5 she fell ill with septic shock on the plane home with partner Jamie Brewster and the flight had to be diverted to Belgrade in Serbia, where she died on January 13.
What had been a dream of Morgan’s after suffering bullying in her school years because of her weight, became a nightmare for the talented singer and all of her family. Her small intestine had been cut accidentally during the £2,500 procedure.
In a powerful interview with the Mirror, brave mum Erin Gibson spoke of her determination to stop others travelling to Turkey for surgery and how she is intent on tackling the issue of body image in the social media age. Sitting in her front room in Anerley, south east London, pictures of Morgan adorn the walls. For Erin, there are reminders at every turn.
Two feet from where the 45-year-old sits stoically, on a shelf by the wall, lie a clean pair of pink football boots and shin pads, alongside a folded black kit – all worn by Morgan when playing for her school. A small teddy bear ornament rests on the fireplace, simply reading: “I love you, mum”.
“There are reminders everywhere now,” Erin says. A large canvas of Morgan’s face is an ever-present in the living room and Erin, a strong woman who suffers no fools, laughs nervously as she describes how she talks to her daughter every day.
Its size makes Erin feel it is the closest she can get to touching her daughter. She gets near to the canvas, gazes into her daughter’s eyes, strokes her hair and her chin, kisses her and remembers her beauty.
“This time last year, Morgan was sitting down with my family having Christmas, with so much hope for the new year,” Erin says. “A new life, a new career, she was hoping she would have a new body. One year on, it’s such a stark contrast.
“The anniversary is coming up and I don’t know how I’m supposed to handle that.” She spent the first six months after her daughter’s death in shock and struggled immensely on October 30 – when Morgan would have turned 21. But Erin has not lost focus of her goal – justice.
“I want justice. Not just for Morgan but for anybody else who has gone through this,” she said. “It’s wrong, it shouldn’t be happening. My daughter had her whole life ahead of her. It’s hard to adjust. Grief-stricken is an understatement.
“I did not know that grief could be such a thing. I’ve had pain and trauma in my life but nothing can compare to the loss of a child, under such grotesque circumstances, it is incredibly mentally challenging and emotionally overwhelming. It is heartbreaking.”
The Mirror last year confronted surgeon Dr Serkan Bayil, who performed the operation, in Istanbul. He denied botching it, saying Morgan suffered an embolism and insisted he did nothing wrong.
However the Serbian doctor who performed the autopsy in Belgrade has said there was a “profound infection and septicaemia”. He said a segment of her small intestine had been removed and that it was damaged, and he stated it was a result of the operation in Turkey.
“My daughter died at the hands of a man performing an operation supposed to better her life, and instead it killed her,” said Erin. “She trusted that man, she trusted the clinic, she trusted the social media content, she believed this was the right way forward. These people sold her a dream.”
An investigation by a German broadcaster last year found that the agency Morgan used, Global Medical Care, was in fact little more than a mailbox in a rental property in Zurich, Switzerland. The hospital where the surgery took place, named Medivita, has said that it only rented the operating space and that Dr Bayil did not work at the hospital.
After the surgery Morgan complained of persistent pain but was discharged after three days. She collapsed on the flight home and an emergency landing was made in Belgrade. Attempts were made to contact Dr Bayil, Global Medical Care and Medivita.
Erin said: “I will not stop until that man is held accountable and that there is a stop or a better practice for people wanting this. People need to know who they’re going to, they absolutely must do their research. They wanted to kick my daughter out of the clinic within 24 hours, she had to pay separately to extend her stay. She should not have been flying.
“I have a lot of questions, I’m incredibly sad, I feel at one with my daughter but I feel incredibly angry that this is able to happen and is still happening,” she said. Morgan had been a happy child until the age of around 12 or 13, Erin said, when she began to get bullied at her school in Croydon. She changed schools and the bullying stopped, Erin recalled, but said the damage had already been done.
Erin was unaware Morgan had flown to Turkey for treatment having seen adverts on social media offering cheap deals for gastric band surgery. She paid £2,500 for the procedure, which would cost around £8,000 to £10,000 privately in the UK.
Turkey has become a hugely popular destination for cosmetic tourism in recent years. Since 2019, at least 29 Brits have died after botched surgery in Turkey, and many more have suffered complications. Erin has been speaking with Labour peer Kevan Jones on the issue of body image and what could be done to tackle the way people see themselves.
Erin wants a Morgan’s Law to be brought in which would see greater importance at school placed on the issue. Kevan is set to take this up and work with Erin further in 2025, he told the Mirror. He also asked the NHS for figures on the cost of fixing complications following cosmetic surgery abroad, but was told such figures were not kept, he said.
The Mirror reported last year how cheap plastic surgery abroad had cost the NHS £5 in operations to fix. A report on body image by the Mental Health Foundation in 2022 recommended an independent regulator should enforce an improved practice on how social media platforms promote unhealthy imaging.
While it said the Advertising Standards Authority should consider pre-vetting some adverts from high-risk industries – such as cosmetic surgery companies and weight-loss products and services – to ensure all advertising abides by its codes. “I’m looking to be as forceful as I can be with this,” said Erin. “I want change. My daughter was a vulnerable person who probably had some mental health issues, she certainly had a body image issue.
“Teaching children body image and the importance of it and the importance of self worth is incredibly important.” She would also like to see a law introduced where those under the age of 25 need parental or guardian consent before being able to have surgery abroad.
“Morgan was beautiful but got bullied because of her size,” said Erin. She grew up where fat is ugly. She was a beautiful person inside and out. Her size, to me, was a representation of how much love and beauty she had, so she was larger than life. I think if she’d been taught about her own body image she might not have felt the need to do what she did.”
Erin described her daughter, who had just started her dream job of working with young children, as being kind, caring and considerate. “She was joyful, fun, very strong and confident. She had a beautiful singing voice and loved her family and siblings. She could have a mouth on her, she’s my daughter,” she joked. “She was headstrong, loud and proud.”
Erin described how Morgan is her last thought at night and the first in the morning. Sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night, screaming her daughter’s name, or gets flashbacks when a certain scent crosses her. “Sometimes I sing to her, I always talk to her, every day, as if she’s still here,” she said. “I tell her how much I love her, I tell her how much I wish she was here, I sing to her and imagine her singing back to me.”
Most of the time she finds herself saying “oh Morgan, oh Morgan,” she told us, before falling silent. “It’s a lot,” she added, fighting back tears. Morgan had seen how others had had success with surgeries abroad.
“She wanted that success story, she chose the easy option and unfortunately she was sold a dream, and it cost her her life,” said Erin. “It’s heartbreaking, it’s gut-wrenching. The day my daughter died I knew my life would never be the same again.
“I can’t listen to music the way I did, I can’t dance the way I did, I can’t embrace everything the way I did. I want to sit there all day and cry into my pillow but I can’t, she wouldn’t want that. Sometimes I hear her say ‘mum – please do your hair, your eyebrows need plucking’. It’s sad, sometimes I feel her presence around me but I know I’ll never be able to hug her again.
“I know Morgan wants me to be happy, to find peace, but I’ve told her I can’t be happy until my mission is complete. After that shopping list of stuff I need to do, which is all around you, Morgan, maybe I can be. He (the surgeon) has to be sorry and we have to change things. I don’t want her to have died in vain.
“She deserved to have a place in this world and because of the society we live in, because of social media, because of peer pressure and what society thinks should be ‘the way’ my daughter felt like she didn’t fit in, she had to confirm. She should never conform.
“The world has to fit around her, she doesn’t have to fit into the world. That’s how it should have been.” Holding the canvas of Morgan, Erin cries as she tells her she will not stop until she gets justice. “You’re my girl,” she tells her. “My baby.”
