COMEDIAN Johnny Vegas is the latest in a long line of famous faces to pledge their support to the Jacob Marsland Appeal.

Despite being away on holiday, as soon as the actor and funny man heard of the six-year-old’s plight, he came forward to donate to a charity abseil being held to help pay for lifesaving treatment abroad.

Ali Beckman, 34, and friend Karen Rogers, 35, both of Kingsmead where Jacob lives, will be joining 19 others in abseiling down Devil’s Gorge at Loggerheads Country Park, Wales on Sunday, November 9, in a bid to raise £20,000 for the appeal.

Ali said: “One of the women taking part knows Johnny so she sent him a text and even though he’s on holiday he replied saying he’s be happy to help and would sort it out as soon as he gets back.

“We just felt we had to do something. We were just watching him throwing himself around the playground, getting muddy and having fun, I thought ‘if people don’t help him he won’t be able to do this’.

“His mum was there and I just thought ‘this is awful, they are such a nice family’. It really pulled at the heart strings.”

The Kingsmead Primary School pupil was in remission after being diagnosed with neuroblastoma last year, but it has returned with a vengeance and no further treatment is available in the UK.

For parents Nicky and Anthony, the only option left is to pay £250,000 to have their son receive the pioneering treatment in America.

Jacob has just started a fresh course of chemotherapy which is aimed at simply prolonging his life rather than curing the cancer.

Nicky said: “It’s really knocked the stuffing out of him, he can’t eat, he can’t keep anything down. He was close to being admitted to hospital with dehydration but thankfully I managed to get a tiny bit of fluid in him and he seems to be picking back up a bit.

“With regards to the appeal, we’ve come along way since we started this a year ago but we’ve still got a long way to go so we are always unbelievably grateful when kind people organise things like this.”