WHY WAS SHE STEALING PHOTOS OF MY LITTLE GIRL?

While Carla Dawson, 36, was fighting for her daughter's life, a thief was hiding in plain sight

Ringing the bell with all the strength of her little fist, my brave girl, Jorja, beamed at everyone on the ward. Alongside her dad Lee, then 27, we chanted the words we’d longed to say. ‘I ring this bell, three times well, its toll clearly says, my treatment is done, this course is run, and now I’m on my way.’

It was February 2017 and Jorja, then two, was finally leaving the cancer ward after almost a year of battling a rare and aggressive brain tumour. She had survived brain surgery and endured chemotherapy and gruelling stem-cell treatment. Yet she never lost her little smile. And now, as we left the hospital, that smile radiated.

I should have felt soul-deep relief, but Lee and I knew the reality. ‘There’s a 60% chance Jorja will relapse,’ the oncologist had told us after Jorja had been given the all-clear. It pushed everything into sharp focus. Telling our other children, Corey, then 13, Demi, 12, Jaydan, nine, Maximus, five, and Jaimee-Leigh, three, was tough, but they desperately wanted to help. We started fundraising for cancer charities, and Lee and I arranged a small wedding.

Meanwhile, every time Jorja wobbled or fell over, my stomach dropped. Was the tumour growing again?

Days before our wedding in July 2017, Jorja said, ‘Mummy, my head hurts.’ Then she was sick. I took her to the hospital, and they blamed a virus.

Jorja was so excited to be my bridesmaid, so we made her comfortable and when I walked down the aisle with her at the register office, I’d never felt prouder. But within days, her oncologist