A POORLY teen from Pokesdown was escorted to her school prom by nearly 60 bikers following an online appeal for the public's help.

Rose Crutcher, 16, who has Crohn's Disease, was due to head to her prom on foot when friend, Robyn Butcher, 17, decided that Rose should make an entrance and appealed for help on various biker-related Facebook groups.

When the girls got back to Robyn's home for Rose to get dressed for the prom, they found rows of bikers, totalling 58 vehicles, waiting in her road to escort the Avonbourne School pupil to the event at AFC Bournemouth.

 

Rose said: "It was pretty cool. I was meant to walk there and instead they escorted us. I felt like a princess.

"We had to wait for my friend, Kamilla, who was my prom date, as it's an all girls school, and when we went outside, there were so many people. The bikers were all revving their engines in the street.

"When we got to AFC Bournemouth, everybody was looking at the bikers and trying to see who was with them and it was me. I will never forget that day."

She said that she has known her friend, Robyn, since they were little as Robyn's dad and Rose's grandad, Jim, who died in 2013, had worked together.

Robyn, who is a keen biker herself, said that after everything Rose had been through, including numerous hospital visits and being fed through a tube, she wanted her friend 'to have a good prom'. Robyn organised for Rose to have her hair, nails and make-up done and a friend's family member took Rose to the prom in a car with a ribbon on it.

Robyn said: "I messaged a load of people on Bournemouth and Poole biker Facebook pages and I got four responses back, so I didn't know who was going to be there.

"Rose came outside and everyone on my road was clapping her. It was amazing because of how many people turned up.

"The beauty of it was that I knew four of the bikers and none of them obviously knew Rose and they turned up. Some came from as far as Bridport and Weymouth to be there."