Sick scammer gang steals identity of five-year-old girl who died of bone cancer

A group of have been caught posing as a five-year-old girl who died of bone cancer in a sick ploy to make money – leaving her already grieving family devastated.

Five-year-old Sophie Taylor died of bone back in 2019 – but her only recently made the horror discovery that a gang in Brazil lifted several images of her to build a fake fundraising page as they attempt to steal thousands of pounds from kind donors.

During her battle with cancer, Sophie would post photos of herself and loved ones on social media defiantly sticking her tongue out and calling on others to do the same with the hashtag #takeasophie. She also formed a bond with then-Norwich City star , now at Tottenham Hotspur, who backed her campaign and paid tribute after her passing.

READ MORE:

Her parents, Alex and Kirsty Taylor, from Sprowston near Norwich, founded Sophie's Sparkle Fund in her honour. The money raised is being used to support to children and families impacted by childhood cancer, and promote medical research. The family were alerted to the fraud on Sunday evening, by which time the fraudsters had collected around £2,000 of their £12,000 goal.

They are unaware how long the scam has been going on for. Mr Taylor said: "What's particularly damaging to us is that they've taken the pictures we had of Sophie going through her journey and they've created a false name of Alice and used all the pictures of Sophie."

In another sickening revelation, the couple also found that the con artists were regularly updating the page with fictional messages from "Alice". "They've said: 'I've had a bad day to day, or feeling better today' [to con people] and for us it's brought up that she's not here. We should be focusing on adjusting our lives. It's hurtful and painful but we think we have to share it so other people don't go through it."

The pair only recently returned to work full-time, and say news of the scam been a major setback. Mrs Taylor said: "It's come into my head at times. When I'm working I have a role to do, but in my own space and time I'll let the emotion out."

Social media companies where the scam has been advertised on have been contacted, but the family are yet to hear back. They have also made the Action Fraud and police aware. Followers of Sophie's real fundraiser warned the couple of the scam, but when they tried to view the site, they appeared to have been blocked.

Mr Taylor says he believes all members of their family have been blocked from accessing the page. He said: "We are naive to it. When Sophie went through her journey, we wanted to try to stay positive, so we made this positive page for her. We weren't expecting her to die when she did, and we tried to carry it on, but we wouldn't have thought that someone would take her images and make their own campaign and exploit her images. I don't think anyone has the right to do that... they are very selfish people."

"We just want people to be aware of fraudulent campaigns, especially abroad. For people who are going through treatment, who are sharing their images, just be aware that this can happen and it can be nipped in the bud quickly. We don't want to deter people from donating from really good campaigns, but just to be aware of things."