A woman from Bedford who has single-handedly raised over £25,000 for charitable causes, is taking on her latest challenge to raise awareness of knife crime in memory of her friend’s son and former Lincroft and Sharnbrook pupil, Luke O’Connor.
Liz Simmonds will take on the ‘The Wall’, a 24-hour, 70-mile challenge along Hadrian’s Wall from Carlisle to Gateshead to raise money for Lives not Knives after 19-year-old Luke lost his life aged just 19 when he was stabbed following a Halloween party in Manchester in 2022.
Luke, who was described by his family as “a gentle giant” was stabbed eight times by 20-year-old Shiloh Pottinger with a 20″ ‘mafia stiletto’ knife.
In May 2023, Pottinger was found guilty of manslaughter and is now serving a 15-year prison sentence.
Liz told the Bedford Independent that, despite suffering a broken wrist, she is determined to complete the ultramarathon to raise money for the charity.
“Whilst I would like to run this, training has had to be halted due to a broken wrist and numerous operations,” explained Liz. “So I will walk it this year with the aim to complete the distance in 24 hours.
“I am doing this in memory of Luke O’Connor and for my friend, Luke’s mum, Carolyn.
“The family have been ripped apart by this utter tragedy and Carolyn has not only lost her beloved son, but Matt and Ben have lost their brother. No family should ever go through this kind of grief and pain.”
Luke was well known in Bedford and many local people have been affected by this tragedy.
“He lived his life with love and happiness and adored spending time with his brothers,” said Liz.
“It would have been his 21st birthday on Wednesday (31 January) so with the blessing of Carolyn I launched my JustGiving page to raise money in Luke’s name. Something must come out of this tragic death, so I’m raising money for Lives not Knives, a youth-led charity that works to prevent knife crime and serious youth violence.”
Liz is no stranger to endurance events, having successfully completed the London2Brighton 100km challenge last year, but even she admits that this year’s event will be tough.
“This challenge will be hard. I have had one operation to fix a broken wrist and have another to fix a ruptured tendon in March and the strength training I wanted to do for this challenge and to ability to be able to run it, will now not happen,” she said.
“So I will have to put some serious hours and days in of walking to gain the fitness levels needed to walk 70 miles in one stint within 24hrs. Working full-time makes this harder but I want to achieve this for Luke and Carolyn and to raise awareness around knife crime.
“There are too many families being torn apart by knife crime. In year ending June 2023, there were over 50,883 indicents involving knives or sharp instruments. Which is 139 a day – and those are the ones that are reported.
“Something must be done and I hope that by raising funds and awareness, I can help in a small way.”
You can donate to Liz’s challenge at her JustGiving page here and find out more about Lives not Knives here.
