The boy with a laugh that can kill

Mother Lucy Hoggan has spoken of the agony she goes through every time she hears her son laugh - because it could one day kill him.

Her three-year-old Cadell suffers the fits of manic laughter ten times a day from epileptic seizures brought on by a benign brain tumour.

"It's frightening," says Lucy, 38. "Cadell may sound like he's laughing but his eyes are filled with fear. Afterwards he cries or wants a cuddle."

Worried family look on in horror as the dangerous seizures begin and can do nothing until they subside.

Doctors warned he will one day need pioneering surgery to remove the hypothalamic hamartoma - the "laughing tumour" - or he could die.

Mum-of-four Lucy, of Aldershot, Hants, said: "It makes my stomach churn with fear." A member of support group HHUGS, Lucy is now hoping the rare condition can be spotted earlier after it took three years to diagnose him.

There are photos here.