Donor helps get cancer girl to US

AN ANONYMOUS donor has paid more than £200,000 to finance pioneering treatment in America for a three-year-old cancer sufferer from Yorkshire.

By The Newsroom

Published 10th Jan 2012, 06:00 BST

Sadie-Rose Clifford, who is from Knaresborough and is battling the aggressive childhood cancer neuroblastoma, flew out to New York with her parents, Katie and Darren, on Saturday. She will be treated at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for as long as nine months after the mystery benefactor donated £205,000.

Relatives of Sadie-Rose were dealt a major blow in the autumn after discovering treatment costs would be double what they anticipated. They had raised almost £300,000 but were faced with a six-figure shortfall until the donor stepped in. Grandfather Graham Gotts, from Knaresborough, said: “We cannot thank them enough, it is an amazing gesture.”

Footballer Peter Crouch and his wife, Abbey Clancy, have backed the fundraising campaign, but Mr Gotts stressed the celebrity couple are not the anonymous donors.