Friends dress up to raise cash for Rosie Ross charity

Jul 7 2008 By Tony Deeley

FRIENDS dressed in their best seaside gear and ignored the summer showers to raise up to £500 for a charity set up in memory of stabbing victim Rosie Ross.

Carrying surf boards, buckets and spades and inflatables, about 40 friends and former school pals completed a four mile trek from Aldridge to Walsall, for the Rosie’s Helping Hands charity, setting up impromptu beach parties all along the route.

Led by Jon Bignell, they set off from Morrisons supermarket and stopped at various venues including seven pubs to hold collections, finishing up at Bar NV in Walsall some eight hours later.

Their effort was a curtain-raiser for the annual Rosie’s Walk and Festival, which takes place on Sunday.

Jon, aged 23, said: “It was great fun.We had a few odd glances from people and toots on horns as we went by, but people were very generous.”

Rosie was 16 when she was stabbed to death while sunbathing in Centenary Square, Birmingham city centre, in May 2001.

Paranoid schizophrenic Inderjit Kainth, 44, of Uplands Road, Handsworth, was ordered to be detained indefinitelty in a secure mental health unit at Birmingham Crown Court after pleading guilty to Rosie’s manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.