Boxing star Richie backing five-year-old Dulcie’s battle with cancer

Former super-middleweight world champion Richie has teamed up with Telford fundraiser Lee Ellis to support an appeal to raise £200,000 to send Dulcie O'Kelly to the US for treatment that could save her life.

He has donated two posters signed by himself, as well as two gloves signed by former unified world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua which will be given away in an online raffle.

Richie has also donated a poster signed by the Olympic boxing team to the appeal, and Lee has raised £250 for the appeal by auctioning a signed photograph of Sir David Jason.

The teacher, from the St George's area of Telford, is well-known for his fundraising in the area.

He said he planned to hold 40 events this year to mark his 40th birthday in June.

He says ticket sales the online raffle has now taken the total raised for Dulcie to more than £600.

Lee says will issue a ticket for every £5 donated through his Just Giving page, which closes on March 4, when the winners will be drawn.

Richie, who lives in Lightmoor, Telford, has raised thousands for cancer charities in memory of his father Len, who died from the disease in 2015.

He said: "I read about her story, and I thought I would like to help.

"I had a couple of items from Anthony Joshua, and would like to raise as much money for the girl as possible."

Dulcie, from Lawley in Telford, was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma in December.

Her mother mum Debbie said: “Our entire world has been turned upside down following the diagnosis, which came completely out of nowhere."

Dulcie, who attends Lawley Primary School, is receiving a treatment called Rapid Cojec – induction chemotherapy which lasts about 70 days.

Debbie added: “We are then looking at surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible and harvest some stem cells to go back into Dulcie’s body at a later date.

"We then move on to high-dose chemotherapy as an in-patient at Birmingham Children’s Hospital for up to eight weeks, followed by radiotherapy and immunotherapy. We have to be so careful to avoid any risk of infection while all this is going on."

She said while it was hoped the treatments would have worked by that point, but "if 12 to 18 months down the line things aren’t looking great, we will then need to take Dulcie to America".

Debbie explained: "The problem is that Dulcie would need to have her first vaccine in America within 60 to 80 days of ending her treatment in the UK.

“This is why we have started our fundraising efforts now, we can’t leave it until the last minute and risk not raising enough funds. We would need to raise about £200,000 but that may rise to £250,000.

"There are two trials ongoing in America at present and there are some success stories being reported."

She said it was possible Dulcie would never be cancer-free because of the type of cancer it was.

"Neuroblastoma is the second most aggressive cancer in children," she said.