CATHY Franklin put her best foot forward in memory of her baby son Ryan who was killed aged two years and three months.

Friends and family supported the young mum in a bid to raise cash for the paediatric intensive care unit at Southampton where Ryan died.

Blandford St Mary-based Cathy, 30, said: "The unit have had their funding cut and are only using 13 beds instead of 17.

"We're going to keep fundraising after this so more beds can be opened for sick children - their lives depend on it. We're walking in memory of Ryan; he was admitted to Southampton.

"It was too late to save him but they did excellent work, they did everything they could do for him."

Cindy Moore raised £600 by going round the pubs in Blandford for sponsorship.

And Yvonne Jessop, who came back from Jersey for a family wedding, also walked.

"I work in Clarkson House, a Jersey hospice," she said. "My colleagues have sponsored me although they're fund-raising for the hospice as well. Because of Ryan and what his mother is doing they felt they wanted to sponsor me."

Ryan died at the hands of his father Lee Khair, currently serving a seven-year term for manslaughter.

Because of the court case Cathy was not able to bury her child for an agonising 18 months.

She and her father Alan with the backing of Robert Walter MP have campaigned tirelessly and the law is to be changed.

Baroness Ashton, from the Department for Constitutional Affairs, has written to her to say that a change in the law to give coroners more power to release bodies will be implemented in the first half of 2006.

First published: August 23, 2005