Runners support colleague with breast cancer

8 November 2021

A West Midlands Police sergeant who organised a run which has raised almost £2,000 for Cancer Research UK in honour of a colleague who is battling the disease said he was “blown away” by the support and generosity of fellow officers and friends.

Matt Cooper’s friend and colleague PC Donna Kelly was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2020 and has undergone surgery, eight rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

After hearing an advert for the Race for Life, Matt and 15 fellow officers vowed to do their bit to show their support for Donna.

Matt said: “I was at home one day waiting to go on nights and I heard an advert on the radio for the Race for Life and that’s where it all started from really.

“I spoke to another sergeant in the office and we agreed we should do something and one of the ideas was to run from the police station at Wolverhampton to Donna’s house in Telford.

“It’s 26.6 kilometres and I certainly couldn’t run that in one go so we came up with the idea of doing a 5k baton and by the end of week the entire team had said yes.

“I then set about sorting out the logistics and I was blown away by people’s involvement and the charitable things that people were doing - TCH Hire from Wolverhampton loaned us a minibus for free, DIS Group produced T-shirts for us at cost price and I was completely bowled over when one of our superintendents, Simon Inglis, said he would pay for them.”

The runners were Matt, Sergeant Garry Barton, Inspector Stephanie Furber, DC Julie Edwards, PC Carla Till, PC Matt Price, PC Sean Allington, PC Matt Tromans, PC Chris Lacey, PC David Woods, PC David Berrisford and PC Natalie Lewis who all serve on the Wolverhampton Neighbourhood Task Force plus Wolverhampton Inspector Sophie Clement, Wolverhampton CID officers DC Vicky Robey and PC Pete Aston, and firearms officer PC Mark Porter.

PC Karl Ansell was in charge of logistics and transport and PC Chris Wilson sadly had to pull out at the last minute due to a family commitment.

The team ran in relay, joining together to run the last leg alongside each other, and completed the route in 2hrs 46 min and 15s, some 40 minutes ahead of their expected finishing time.

Matt said the amount raised was approaching the £2,000 mark and added: “When I set it up I only wanted to raise £150 - I thought that would be a good sum - but people’s generosity has absolutely bowled me over.

“Donna has been our focus in this and it was great to see her meet us at the end. She is a much-loved member of the team and has remained so positive while fighting the disease.

“She’s been so brave and we wanted to show how much she means to us while raising money for such an important cause.

“It was all the motivation we needed to get us through the challenge and it was lovely to see Donna, who has been responding well to treatment, there to meet us at the end.

“It was a great event. Donna was really pleased and she has supported us all the way.”

People can still donate online.