Dudley father starts smear test campaign after death of partner

Marie O'Toole died in January after being diagnosed with cervical cancer

A father whose partner died of cervical cancer is starting a campaign to try to prevent more children losing their mothers to the disease in the future.

Mother-of-four Marie O'Toole, 37, from Dudley, died in January.

Her partner Chris Hopkins has begun The Smear Campaign to reinforce the importance of testing.

He said: "I want to get to the point where I can say I have made sure a child has not lost a mum to cervical cancer."

Ms O'Toole cared for people with learning difficulties before her death and her family say she was loving and full of fun.

Chris Hopkins said he had started his campaign to raise awareness of the importance of smear tests to stop other children losing their mothers

She had had a smear test but Mr Hopkins said she was not "one of the lucky" women saved by one and her loss was being felt by their youngest son.

"Lewis is nine years old; he now faces a life of not having his Mum around him because of cervical cancer," he said.

Cervical cancer screening restarted across the UK earlier this year, but some women said they would not attend their appointments for fear of catching Covid.

A survey by gynaecological cancer charity the Eve Appeal indicated nearly one in three missed smear tests were the result of people being "put off" by coronavirus.

There was already a low attendance rate before the pandemic - partly because of misconceptions.

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Mr Hopkins' scheme encourages women to go for screenings and he hopes to turn it into a charity.

"That is the drive. I cannot do it for him [Lewis] but I can maybe do it for someone else," he said.

"You always like to say that, the best part of Lewis is because of Marie, she was one of life's good people."