We're furious the 'Lip King' is selling weight-loss jabs, say dead mother's family

Alice Webb thought she'd be home in time for the school run.

In September last year, she had booked a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift (BBL) with Jordan Parke, a self-styled practitioner known as the "Lip King". The procedure typically sees dermal filler injected to make the buttocks bigger.

Hours later she was dead.

The BBC has discovered that while Mr Parke - who was arrested but not charged - is not currently offering Brazilian butt lifts, he is still operating in the cosmetics industry, illegally selling prescription-only weight-loss jabs on social media.

Speaking for the first time since her death, Alice's family say our findings make them "incredibly angry".

The morning had begun like any other. Alice had dropped her five children at school in her pink-and-gold-wheeled car, country music blasting from the speakers.

"I had been in touch with Alice quite a lot that day," recalls her sister April Palmer, "we'd been talking about the children."

A few hours later Alice stopped texting. Several messages and calls went unanswered. April eventually got through but it was a paramedic who picked up and told her Alice was unresponsive and being taken to hospital.

The family got there as quickly as they could, but on arrival doctors explained just how serious the situation was.

"It was probably an hour until she passed," says April, her voice shaking. "And then we spent until the early hours of the morning with Alice.

"We said we loved her, we held her hand, stroked her hair."

Alice passed away before her children awoke that morning. April and the girls' fathers faced the heartbreaking task of telling her five daughters.

Ben recalled: "We all met at the house at about half past six, we wanted to tell them before they got up for school. We didn't want them getting ready. It was awful."

Mr Parke was arrested on suspicion of her manslaughter last September. He is still on bail but hasn't been charged.

While it appears Mr Parke is not currently offering BBLs, our investigation has uncovered that he is still operating in the cosmetics industry. We have now found him illegally selling prescription-only weight-loss jabs on social media.

This isn't anything new - in 2023, another woman told the BBC she had ended up in A&E vomiting blood after taking weight-loss jabs from him.

After that incident, and in the wake of Alice's death, we investigated whether it was still possible to purchase jabs from him.

After a quick Instagram exchange and a payment of over £200 our order went through.

The kits were delivered by post. We opened the unlabelled white envelope and found needles, mixing agents and a vial of unlabelled white powder. There were no instructions in the package.

Lab tests by Dr Stephen Childs at the University of Sunderland confirmed it was semaglutide, which is also found in the diabetes drug Ozempic and the weight-loss drug Wegovy.

When prescribed by a professional, the medication can be self-administered as weekly injections via pre-filled pens. People must have at least one existing weight-related health condition, such as high blood pressure, and be obese to qualify.

This medication is carefully controlled and Mr Parke is not legally allowed to prescribe it.

In 2023, Maddy, then 32, says she bought similar jabs from him. After her first injection she says she became extremely ill, bed-bound and vomiting. Mr Parke said it would pass and advised anti-sickness tablets.

But when she tried the same jabs again weeks later, Maddy says the reaction was worse.

"It was bad," she told the BBC. "I was throwing up all night, to the point where I was throwing up stomach acid, blood, white foam."

When we told Maddy that Mr Parke was still selling weight-loss jabs, she said it gave her "goosebumps".

"I'm honestly disgusted. I remember being in A&E and wanting to die because I was suffering that much. It was horrendous."

Dr Sophie Shotter, an experienced aesthetic doctor, said it was "shocking" Mr Parke could sell weight-loss jabs in this way. She warned that when not prescribed correctly semaglutide can lead to serious medical conditions, including thyroid problems and pancreatitis, which can be life-threatening.

Dr Shotter said preparing drugs for injection was something she was specially trained to do and not something the customer should be doing at home, without training.

"You could give yourself more or less than intended and that is fraught with danger," explaining that usually, weight-loss jabs come already mixed and measured.

"The fact that Jordan Parke is able to do this is an embarrassment," she said. "We're the laughing stock of the rest of the world, because I don't know a single other country where this would be allowed to happen."

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for investigating claims involving the unlicensed distribution or sale of prescription-only medicines.

Police said selling weight-loss jabs without a prescription wouldn't breach Mr Parke's bail conditions.

Alice's family are furious that Jordan Parke is illegally selling weight-loss drugs.

"He shouldn't be [selling them]," says Ben, the father of Alice's eldest daughter Delsie. "It's as simple as that. I don't know how he sleeps at night."

The family say every milestone and occasion is marked by the shadow of her absence. The day one of her children learnt to ride a bike didn't feel right without her. Neither did buying Delsie a dress for school prom.

In Gloucestershire, Alice's mother Rachael is turning preserved funeral blooms into wreaths for friends and family - a small talisman to mark the one-year anniversary.

"She was special to a lot of people," Rachael says.

For the family, the anniversary is a moment to both grieve and reflect - but the ongoing police investigation hangs over them.

The BBC approached Jordan Parke for comment and to offer him a chance to speak but he did not respond.

Gloucestershire Police told us: "Alice's death is believed to have been the first death of this kind in the United Kingdom, and there are numerous complexities for the team to investigate."

"We understand and appreciate that Alice's family want answers and we are actively investigating her death and working with medical specialists in order to determine what happened in order to provide those answers."

Following her death, Alice's family, together with safer cosmetics charity Save Face, launched a campaign calling for a ban on liquid BBLs from high-street beauty clinics.

And in August the government announced plans to strengthen regulation of the cosmetics industry.

Only qualified surgeons will be able to carry out non-surgical BBLs and clinics will need to meet strict rules to obtain licences to offer fillers and Botox.

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "This government is taking action to root out dangerous treatments, with tough new measures to make sure only qualified healthcare professionals will be able to perform the highest-risk procedures."

"For anyone considering a cosmetic procedure, please check the provider's qualifications and insurance - and avoid treatments that appear suspiciously cheap."

There's no clear date for implementation yet. Until then, oversight sits with local authorities – who say they lack the powers to control the industry.

There have been more than 1,800 complaints about practitioners since 2022, according to freedom of information data we requested from councils. Of those, 799 providers have been investigated and 85 shut down.

There are also 156 councils in the dataset which have had more than one complaint made but not carried out inspections in the year of the complaint.

The Local Government Association - which represents local authorities - say they welcome government plans for a licensing scheme but argue more funding is needed.

Victor Ktorakis, from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, says they are pressing for urgent action.

"My fear is we're going to get to a point where there are so many premises and practitioners operating, that it is going to be very, very difficult to manage it from a public safety point of view - which is why we need something in place as soon as possible.

"And we do need time scales, and we need clarity."