Twelve-year-old boy climbs Ben Nevis after losing dad and two brothers to brain tumours

• Mum, Marie says it was an "emotional" climb.

A 12-year-old boy who lost two of his brothers and his dad to brain tumours will be climbing the UK’s highest mountain with his mum to raise money for the charity she set up in their memory.

On Sunday, Lucas Hughes, from York, will be joined by his mum, Marie, and 35 other climbers to scale Ben Nevis, in Scotland, for OSCAR’s Paediatric Brain Tumour Charity.

They hope to raise over £6000 towards support, care, awareness and research of children's brain tumours.

Marie set up the charity with her husband, Ian, after they lost their 9-year-old son Oscar to a brain tumour in 2014.

Oscar was diagnosed in 2013 and his family and friends set up OSCAR’s PBTC to help children faced with the disease. 

The charity had raised over £250,000 when Ian received news that he too had a brain tumour, and sadly died in 2020.

Soon after Ian's funeral, their youngest son Milo was also diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of just four and died in May 2021.

Ian, Oscar and Milo are survived by Marie, Lucas and Lucas' older brother 19-year-old Seb.

Lucas, Marie and the group are walking in their memory and in the hope that the charity can go some way to helping others that are facing what they faced as a family.

Phil Martinez, newly-appointed Charity Manager of OSCAR’s PBTC said, "I have known the Hughes Family for many years and am constantly staggered by what they have had to live through.

"Lucas, his older brother Seb and Marie are the bravest people I know.

"No-one should have to go through what the Hughes have had to even once, let alone three times – and we will do all we can at OSCAR’s PBTC to help."