The hardest decision a parent could ever make: How one mother was so frightened of her teenage daughter's violent rages that she put her into care for the sake of her other two children

 
Marie was 13 years old when Jo Griffith (pictured left) and her husband Peter, from Lancashire, could take no more of her behaviour. A terrifying spate of incidents left Jo fearing not only for Marie (pictured with her face pixelated) but also those of her younger children - Mark, then aged four, and baby May, aged one. Unable to cope, the parents made the agonising decision to put Marie into the care of the local authorities. It wasn't until Marie was 21, having spent eight years in various secure units and acute psychiatric wards, that she was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Today, Marie is 23 and living happily in an NHS-funded private residential home for young people with severe mental health issues or brain injuries. With Marie's consent, Jo decided to tell her family's heart-breaking story to raise awareness of childhood mental health issues.