THE mother of a Co Antrim boy with a life-limiting illness has told how they are "determined" to take him on a dream holiday despite online scammers raiding their bank account.
Yvette McClean from Ballymena said she was left horrified after thieves stole hundreds of pounds saved for a trip for her son Ethan.
The nine-year-old suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a severe muscle-wasting condition, having been diagnosed with the condition when he was 18 months old.
The family have been saving to take the young boy to Canada to watch his favourite sport of ice hockey.
But on Sunday, Ms McClean received the devastating news that her savings account had been raided by online thieves.
"We got a text about 8.30am from the bank to say there had been strange PayPal activity in the account," she said.
"We had been sleeping so there was no way we had done anything. I logged on and found quite a few hundred pound had been taken.
"I was horrified to think that someone could do that - this was money we were saving to take Ethan to Canada."
But Ms McClean said they were determined that their son would not miss out on a trip of a lifetime.
"When we were planning the holiday, we asked Ethan where he wanted to go, did he want to go to Disney," she said.
"He's such a big ice hockey fan, he's always at the Giants matches, he said he wanted to go to Canada to see the biggest teams play in the National Hockey League.
"We're stubborn and determined that we won't let this stop us. We have got a bit of money back through the bank, but we will still be going.
"It's just terrible that some people would do this."
