A BRIT once dubbed the world’s fattest man is begging the NHS for weight loss surgery after moving back to the UK from America.
Paul Mason, 59, who tipped the scales at 70 stone at his heaviest, emigrated from his home in Ipswich, Suffolk, to Massachusetts in 2014.
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He decided to move to the US to be with his fiancée Rebecca Mountain who he met after having a gastric bypass and dropping to 19 stone.
But the couple soon split and his heartache led to him gorging again and he soon ballooned to a staggering 36 stone.
After five years in the States, Paul moved back to Blighty in May but admits he’s in “the last chance saloon” having been admitted to hospital several times since.
He says he needs multiple surgeries, which could cost the NHS over £100,000, including two new knees, a hip and hernia operations.
Paul told the Mirror: “The NHS have saved my life time and again. I could be dead without them.
“I’m determined to get my health back so I don’t let them down – I just need them to help me one last time.”
Broken man
He claims he is now financially broken and living alone in taxpayer-funded sheltered housing, where he has round-the-clock care.
Paul first hit the headlines in 2002 when fire crews had to take out a window and brickwork so a forklift could remove him from his housing association bungalow during a medical emergency.
He would spend his days languishing in a reinforced bed in his living room, with a hoist lifting him up to watch TV.
The home also had 5ft-wide doors so he did not get stuck in the frame and even his washroom had a reinforced toilet seat and bath.
On Fridays he would wait outside his local fish and chip shop and order four large cod, two pies, four battered sausages and six portions of chips.
By 2009 he was scoffing 20,000 calories a day – eight times the average for a man – including three family-sized takeaway meals an evening.
Gastric op
Docs warned he needed a life-saving gastric bypass to shrink his stomach to the size of an egg, which he underwent in 2010.
His care was costing UK taxpayers £100,000-a-year and an estimated £1.5million in total before his move to live with eight stone vegetarian Ms Mountain in 2014.
They had met the previous year when Ms Mountain traced Paul on Facebook after seeing him on a documentary about his struggles – Eating To Death: The World’s Fattest Man.
After long Skype chats Rebecca proposed on US chat show The View.
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She said at the time: “We just clicked straight away. We have similar goals and we are very compatible.”
The pair were engaged following Paul’s skin removal op in New York in 2015 and Rebecca said she could not wait to go on dates with the “new” him.
But they split in September 2015, with Paul writing on Facebook: “Rebecca and I are still good friends. I struggled to get motivated in our relationship and that’s why it ended.”
Rebecca, who makes wooden furniture for cats, added: “We are no longer a couple but I stand behind him 100 per cent.”
Downward spiral
Following the split, his life descended into a life of petty crime, which saw him charged with stealing from US supermarket chain Walmart.
He claims that the stealing rap came after he moved in with a friend who offered to let him live rent free, but would demand money for cigarettes and take opioids.
Paul told the Mirror: “This is what led to me stealing, she would give me a whole A4 list of stuff and would get me to go in the supermarket and steal it – I did not have any choice – it was like an entrapment situation.”
He described it as one of the “lowest moments of my life”.
Paul returned to the UK in May and spent a month living off takeaways in a Travelodge before social services moved him into sheltered housing.
He now lives on £71 a week Universal Credit and is trying to get on the housing list and qualify for disability benefits, which he is not immediately entitled to having lived abroad for so long.
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Desperate for surgery, Paul claims he has given up various fatty foods – including chocolate, sweeteners and bread – to prove to the NHS he is worthy of the operations he needs.
But he admits he has been unable to kick his craving for crisps and puts it down to his “addiction” for food.
Paul added that he isn’t a “sponger” and that he is determined to get his life back in the right direction – but just needs help.
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