Essex boy inspired by Gareth Bale’s long hair will have first ever cut for charity

A nine-year-old boy from Essex who was inspired to grow his hair long by footballer Gareth Bale - and has never had a haircut before - will have his long locks chopped off for charity.

Reilly Stancombe, of Little Clacton, will donate his hair to The Little Princess Trust, which provides free real hair wigs to children and young people who have lost their own hair through cancer treatments or other conditions.

He aimed to raise £100 for the charity, which also helps research projects focusing on finding less toxic treatments for paediatric cancers, and had raised almost £600 on his GoFundMe page by the end of his first day of fundraising.

His mum Daisy Canny, 30, said people know her son as "Reilly with the long hair" and that it is "sort of his identity really".

She said Reilly was born with a bowel condition and got the idea for donating his hair when he saw poorly children at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he goes for appointments. Reilly said that seeing ill people while at hospital was "really unpleasant and it's not nice. People do get picked on and it's really sad when people have no hair and I feel like I want to give back and make people's life way happier," he said.

He is getting his hair cut at a barbers in Clacton-on-Sea on August 18.