The Tale Of Laughing Boy- Film Will Reveal The Real Connor Sparrowhawk

A NEW film about Connor Sparrowhawk aims to show the world the real Connor – not just “the dead disabled boy” in the media.

Oxford film producer Sam Cooper has used home video footage of Connor shot by his mum and interviews with his family to paint a portrait of a “happy-go-lucky” teenager with a sharp sense of humour.

The Tale of Laughing Boy will be the first time the world has seen any of the footage of the 18-year-old since his death made national headlines in 2013.

Connor suffered from autism and drowned in a bath at Slade House in Headington after suffering an epileptic fit.

His mother Sara Ryan said she hoped the film would help her campaign to change the law around accommodating people with disabilities.

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, which ran the in-patient assessment centre for people with learning disabilities and epilepsy, confirmed it would not be re-open last year.

An independent investigation on behalf of the trust concluded that his death could have been prevented.

Connor’s family criticised the unit heavily and launched a campaign to get Justice for Laughing Boy – the family nickname for Connor – which gained national media attention.

But it was Oxford disability advocacy charity My Life My Choice that asked Miss Cooper if she could create a film showing the real Connor when he was alive.

Miss Cooper, a producer at Oxford Digital Media, said: “In the media all the time we hear about the disabled boy who died, but we wanted to ask, who is Connor Sparrowhawk? What did he mean to the people around him?

“Everyone we interviewed just said he had an absolutely fantastic sense of humour, sometimes intentionally, sometimes just through sarcasm.

“He seemed quite happy to punt along and take all the simplicities out of life in a great way.

“He wasn’t challenging. He seemed happy-go-lucky.”

Miss Cooper, 28, of Steventon, made the film with the help of cameraman and editor Guy Loftus and James Tomalin, who acted as sound mixer and executive producer.

From about five hours of raw footage, she whittled the film down to 15 minutes.

My Life My Choice is planning to release the film online on various websites on July 4 – the anniversary of Connor’s death.

Connor’s mother, Dr Ryan, said the film-makers had done “an amazing job”.

She said: “I want to raise awareness of the at-worst catastrophic and at-best inadequate care people with learning disabilities get too often.

“They are not seen as fully human, so I think for people to see Connor playing with his brothers and sisters is very important.”

The campaign is trying to get a private members’ bill through parliament which would change the law to make it harder for authorities to put people with learning disabilities in accommodation they don’t want to be in.

Dr Ryan added: “The film is a moment of reflection that Connor was a human being and an absolute delight. It will remind the Care Quality Commission and Southern Health he was a member of a family and he was loved to pieces, which comes across completely in the film.”