Kent woman whose husband never returned from scuba dive says she knows how Michael Mosley's wife feels

A Kent woman whose husband went missing while scuba diving and never came home says she knows how Michael Mosley's wife feels.

Ben Moss, 42, disappeared on March 12, 2018 - after he went scuba diving on the Kent coast and never came back up.

To this day, his body has never been found and his wife, Rosie, 43, had to embark on a year-long court battle to get him legally declared dead.

She was issued with a death certificate at the end of 2019, and since then has spent the last five years adjusting to life without Ben. Now she fronts podcast 'Widowed AF', has taken up yoga and ditched alcohol, in a bid to change her coping mechanisms.

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Mum-of-three Rosie, a full-time podcaster, from Faversham, said: “Ben was my rock, my best friend - the rug was completely pulled from underneath me when he died.

“There’s no safety net and in hindsight, I was quite dependent on him. Learning how to be with him has been like learning to walk again. It’s been about learning to function without that person by your side. I know how it feels to have to deal with the uncertainty of losing someone."

Ben, a keen diver, went diving along the Kent coast while Rosie stayed home to look after their three kids - Monty, 14, Hector, 11 and Tabitha, six. But police knocked on the door in the evening of March 12 - to let her know he hadn’t resurfaced.

“I think back to something I said earlier that day,” Rosie said. “The day he died, I actually stood in the playground, talking to the other mums. We were talking, as mums do, about the gas and electric bills. I said: ‘If Ben dropped dead right now, I wouldn’t know how to take care of the bills.’ It’s quite horrifying, really, looking back.”

Ben was classified as a missing person for over a year after his disappearance - delaying the healing process for Rosie and stopping her from sorting out his affairs. She wasn’t able to discontinue his car repayments - as Ben hadn’t been legally declared dead.

As a newly-widowed mum on maternity leave, she struggled to make ends meet. “I was on maternity leave - so I just didn’t have any income,” she said. "I had to be two parents instead of one. I didn’t know how to manage it.”

Rosie began looking into the process of getting Ben a declaration of presumed death - which often takes seven years to get. This means Ben wouldn’t have been declared legally dead until 2025.

But her friend, a solicitor, represented her case in court and the certificate was granted at the end of 2019. Rosie decided not to take civil action against the boat company Ben rented from - alongside two friends.

She said: “You go into this big, massive building and you’re thinking 'best case scenario, your husband is going to be declared dead'. We were looking at a legal cost of over £20k - for solicitors to help get Ben declared dead. Thankfully, I’ve got a lawyer friend who made the mistake of saying she’d be here if I ever needed anything. She took the case on."

Since Ben was declared dead, Rosie has been processing her grief in a number of different ways. While she initially sought solace in food - she’s since taken up yoga, and adopted an alcohol-free lifestyle.

“The first year of widowhood is a blur,” she said.

“I did have some negative coping mechanisms at first. But I went into therapy - I do yoga, I meditate and I no longer drink alcohol. I think you make a choice - no-one would blame you if you wanted to become an alcoholic and cry all the time.”

The news of Dr. Michael Mosley being found dead close to a coastal resort in Symi, Greece, on June 9, left Rosie “in horror”.

She says she empathises hugely with his grieving wife, Dr. Claire Bailey. “I feel for anyone who’s been through this,” she added.

“But to have that uncertainty - especially initially. That sort of horror never leaves you.”

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