It was a race against time, but The Shields Gazette and its generous readers have raised £15,000 in just six weeks to help a four-year-old girl have urgent facial surgery.

Editor Rob Lawson says “Cash For Katie” has been one of the newspaper’s most successful appeals ever, with cash still arriving every day.

He said today: “I’m delighted to have reached our target so quickly. £15,000 is a lot of money in South Tyneside, and to have reached our target within six weeks is amazing.”

Katie Meehan (pictured), from South Shields, has a rare condition called cystic hygroma, which causes her face and tongue to swell up. She suffers a lot of pain from cysts inside her mouth and cannot eat, drink or talk properly because her tongue is so big.

The money will pay for an operation on Katie in London on March 28 by world-famous plastic surgeon Professor Ian Jackson. He is well-known for operating on, and then adopting, the Peruvian jungle boy David – subject of several TV documentaries.

The newspaper was under pressure to raise the money quickly because Professor Jackson makes only one visit to Britain a year, and this year it is in late March.

Mr Lawson said: “It was a campaign which quickly captured the borough’s imagination, whilelittle Katie captured our hearts.

“We’ve now announced the campaign will continue until March 28, the date ofKatie’s operation, in the hope that we can raise £20,000.”

The extra money will go towards the aftercare and further surgery which Katie will need as she grows up.

Katie’s grateful mum, Dawn, said: “If it wasn’t for the Gazette and the great response from the public there’s no way we could have ever had the operation – we would have had to let it drop. It shows we come from a very caring borough.”

To mark reaching the £15,000 target, the Gazette devoted page one, the centre page spread and its comment column to Katie’s story, the ways money has been raised and details of the pioneering surgical techniques which Professor Jackson plans to use.

In an emotive interview with reporter Andrew White, Dawn Meehan spoke of her hopes that Katie may now lead a normal life and her fears because of the dangers of the operation.

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