Halifax father walks hill 50 times in 11 hours for stillborn daughter

Ben Moorhouse: "Every step I make is for my daughter"

A father has climbed a West Yorkshire hill 50 times in 11 hours in memory of his daughter, who died two weeks before she was due to be born.

Ben Moorhouse and Gaynor Thompson's first child, Kallipateira, was stillborn on 26 October 2018.

Mr Moorhouse said he walked the equivalent of 40 miles on Trooper Lane in his hometown of Halifax.

He completed the challenge on Saturday to mark Baby Loss Awareness week and raise funds for charity.

"Every step I make is for my daughter," he said.

"When I held my daughter in hospital, I made a promise that through devastation you can either go downhill or go uphill and I just made her a promise that I will do everything in my power to help other parents and to help save babies' lives."

The 38-year-old is raising money for Tommy's, which is researching the causes and prevention of miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth.

"I don't feel any less pain than I did three years ago and I just hope by doing this in my daughter's name and legacy, it can make such a difference," Mr Moorhouse said.

"Even now there are so many full-term baby deaths that are preventable and this is why research is so, so important."

The couple have a one-year-old son, who accompanied Mr Moorhouse when he walked around Rhodes in Greece

In August, Mr Moorhouse walked the perimeter of Rhodes in Greece as part of a fundraising campaign for the same charity and raised more than £5,500, achieving 27% of his £20,000 target.

He said he completed 150 miles of that challenge in "42 hours with no sleep" amid soaring temperatures that reached "nearly 50 degrees".

"It was emotionally tough.

"Unfortunately I didn't make my target. I was hoping to raise £20,000. This is another reason why I'm [trying to] raise some more money for the team in Manchester at Tommy's."

Mr Moorhouse said he was "still recovering from Rhodes", but decided to take on his latest challenge about a week ago as "I can't sit there and do nothing".