A YOUNG girl from Alloa who was told from birth she may never walk has defied all odds by completing a 5km fundraising run.

Hope Gilmour, 11, was originally diagnosed with clicky hips as a baby but, during an operation to resolve this, doctors discovered she had no hip sockets at all and would need to have prosthetics carved.

The family was told Hope may never be able to walk or may walk with a limp following this operation.

Now, Hope has surpassed all expectations and run the Edinburgh 5km Big Fun Run alongside her mum Louisa Micallef to raise money for Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity. The charity supports the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and helped the family to have a positive hospital experience.

Micallef said: “I can’t put into words how proud of her I am and how amazing it was to see her determination to complete the race and raise as much awareness as possible of ECHC.

“People don’t realise that many of the excellent facilities and services at the RHSC are funded by the charity but if it hadn’t been for them, I don’t know what we would have done when Hope was in hospital.

“Hope was only supposed to be in overnight but we ended up staying at the hospital for a week, so having this support really helped us.”