AN adventurous Loughton man has jumped from a plane to raise money for muscular dystrophy research.

Tony Bentley, his brother, Paul, and 31 of his wife Terrie's colleagues made the ultimate leap of faith because the Bentley's seven-year-old son, Jordan, has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most devastating form of the muscle-wasting disease.

Mr Bentley was strapped to a qualified skydiver during his plunge from 11,500ft over Cambridge.

And he said he was not scared for a moment.

"It was brilliant. I loved it and I would do it again now."

Mrs Bentley said: "It was excellent. We're all a bit sunburnt but we had a fantastic day. They all said they'd do it again even though they were shaking in their boots. They had a brilliant time. I was so proud of them. I can't put into words how much it meant to us."

The jump has raised about £8,000 so far, and Mrs Bentley hopes her employers, an American law firm, will add substantially to that.

Jordan is a pupil at Hereward School, Loughton, and is under the care of St Margaret's Hospital in Epping and London's Great Ormond Street Hospital. He undergoes daily physiotherapy and sleeps wearing splints on his legs to ease his symptoms, but Mrs Bentley says there is nothing else that can be done for him. There is no known cure.

"It's a terminal illness. They don't normally live past their 20s. Raising funds towards research for a cure is what keeps us going. It's usually passed on by mothers but I'm not a carrier so it was a freak of nature that Jordan got it. But we're staying strong, we're not going to get mopey."

Mrs Bentley, who ran the London Marathon two years ago for the same cause, did not jump because she is eight months pregnant.

But she is not too upset at missing out. "I'd rather run the marathon again," she said.

July 10, 2002 15:30