Cancer charity sued over £100k that parents want to use for ill daughter

Telegraph

07-07-2025

A charity is being sued over £100,000 raised by the parents of a cancer-stricken nine-year-old boy who want to spend the money on their terminally ill daughter, a court has heard.
Craig Evison and Victoria Morrison's son, Kyle Morrison, died in 2020 after being diagnosed with an incurable brain cancer.
Before his death, well-wishers had donated thousands to pay for treatment in the US and 'memory-making' experiences for the family, but the Covid-19 pandemic meant Kyle was unable to travel.
The couple went on to have daughter Ruby-Rose, now two, but she is seriously ill with a genetic metabolic disease and is unlikely to live beyond summer 2025.
They began a GoFundMe page, separate to Kyle's fundraiser which is now the subject of the legal claim, in an attempt to take her to Disney World in Florida to meet Minnie Mouse.
But the couple say that when they tried to claim the almost £100,000 left from the money donated for Kyle, they were told it could not be paid because Ruby-Rose does not have cancer.
The parents, from Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, are now suing Gold Geese, the charity which holds the money, at the High Court, saying the money should be spent to benefit Ruby-Rose.
However, the charity says the donations were made for Kyle when he was a cancer patient and can now only be spent on trials or another child in a 'similar' situation to him.
Kyle was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) in 2019 when he was eight, the court heard.
Attempts to raise money for his treatment began with a Facebook campaign through the group One Pound Warriors, which encourages donors to give small but regular sums to charitable causes.
However, the group then passed on Kyle's cause to Essex-based Gold Geese, a charity which benefits children with cancer.
The money flooded in and Kyle was due to go to the US for treatment in late 2020, but by the time Covid travel restrictions were eased he was too ill.
He died in October 2020.
Used for children with cancer
The couple, who also have another son, then went on to have daughter Ruby-Rose in 2022, but she was diagnosed with Megdel syndrome, an inherited disorder that affects multiple body systems and which is usually fatal in early infanthood.
Ms Morrison, Kyle's mother, told Judge Marc Glover that they believed the money raised for Kyle should now go to their daughter.
But William Moffett, the barrister acting for the charity, said the money can only be used for children with cancer and not other diseases.
He added that the contract which the couple had agreed stated that if the money was not spent on their son's treatment before he died, it would go to another DIPG trial or the cause of a child in a 'similar' position.
There was no way donors could have meant for the money to benefit Ruby-Rose, as she was not even born at the time that it was pledged, he said.
A judgment will be delivered at a later date.