Hove mum's new heartbreak

4:00pm Friday 5th September 2008

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A mother whose son died of leukaemia is appealing to thieves to return a money box full of his keepsakes.

Paris Knight, 34, was horrified when she returned home on Saturday afternoon to discover she had been burgled.

It was not until yesterday that she discovered the tin box, which belonged to her son Keiton, was missing.

Keiton died in March last year, aged eight, after a four-year battle with leukaemia.

Until recently, Paris had been too upset to put his belongings on display.

She is desperate to get the tin back. She said: “It’s bad enough being burgled but I thought at least they hadn’t taken anything of his. I haven’t got him any more so I hold on tight to the things that he held on to.”

The money box is a colourful metal Noddy tin in the shape of a house. It has a picture of Noddy and Big Ears and was stuffed with change and foreign coins which Keiton had collected.

Also inside were scribbled notes and doodles – all treasured possessions for his grieving mother.

Paris, who moved into the property in Salisbury Road, Hove, two weeks ago, also lost a laptop computer and DVDs in the raid.

She said: “The tin was full of coins he had collected.

There was foreign money and little notes that he had written out.

“It is precious to me. I just want whoever has it to please, please return it. I don’t care about the money. When I have needed some change I never touched it because his little fingers had put every one of those coins inside. Even when things were tight for me, I never touched it.

“I had been driving around with his things in the boot of my car since he died because it hurt to look at them all the time but I’ve just set up a memorial around my fire for him and it wasn’t until I dusted I realised the tin was missing. I’m still in shock.

“If anyone has it, please take it into a police station. I just want it back.”

Keiton had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia diagnosed in 2003 and was responding to chemotherapy when he suffered a relapse with a more aggressive form of the disease called myeloblastic leukaemia.

The race to find a bone marrow match for him was supported by Premiership footballers Jermaine Jenas and Theo Walcott but Keiton died before a donor could be found.

His family set up a website in his memory, www.keitonknight.com, and are continuing to raise awareness of the need for more mixed race and black people to join the bone marrow register.

Anyone with information about the burglary should call police on 0845 6070999 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.