Footballer, Harry Kane almost fell victim of trolls who created a fake Instagram to extol money over the pretence of seeking fund for a cancer patient.
An account called ‘Declans Foundation’ that used the handle @harrykane_birthday claimed it was accumulating followers to get footballer Harry Kane to come to a boy called Declan’s birthday party.
Doctored screenshots posted on the page show the user trying to message the England captain asking him to attend ‘Declan’s’ birthday party after he was diagnosed with cancer.
But the photos on the page are actually of a nine-year-old called Bailey Cooper from Bristol who died of aggressive childhood cancer in December 2017.
The fake reply from the Tottenham star, 26, purports to show him agreeing to attend the birthday party if the account gets 20,000 followers.
The trolls also targeted Manchester United’s official account, mocking up a fake response to another message, which agrees to host the birthday party at Old Trafford if the profile gets to 100,000 followers and 130,000 likes.
The account bio reads: ‘Please share with friends so my son can have the opportunity to meet his football icon, Harry Kane.’
It reached 47,000 followers before all the images were taken down and the account was made private today.
The account sparked a furious backlash, with people on social media branding it ‘disgusting’ and one person urging others not to support the trolls.
They wrote:
‘The Harry Kane Birthday party is fake. Stop sharing the page and giving them the attention they want.
‘They have used pictures of a little boy called Bailey who has already passed.’
The sick account owner wrote posted earlier: ‘I can’t wait to give my little baby his best every birthday.
‘I have to thank everyone for all of the DMs and the support in general.
‘I hope we can hit this new goal. I chose Old Trafford as we currently live in Manchester as Declan was transferred to a new hospital to cure his needs.’
The picture on the account shows Bailey Cooper, who battled Non-Hodgkin lymphoma for 15 months, with no hair and a hospital drip hooked up to his nose.
Little Bailey was just nine years old when he died.
The nation’s hearts broke when it was reported he managed to live long enough to welcome his baby sister Millie into the world in December 2017.
Pictures showed him cradling baby Millie on the day she was born – the day before he died on Christmas Eve 2017.
He told his parents Lee and Rachel they were ‘only allowed to cry for 20 minutes’ after he left them.
