WHAT could the great-hearted father of a son in intensive care do when his partner rang him as he was at the wheel?

John Cocking answered the call - and faced a six-month driving ban that would stop him making the daily journey to his child's hospital bed.

But after hearing how the 56-year-old founder member of The Press's Guardian Angels Appeal had given up work for the sake of his seven-year-old child, also called John, and his partner Sara Riley lives in hospital to be with their son, York magistrates decided to let him continue driving - with 12 points on his licence.

Afterwards, he revealed why support is so important for himself, Sara, young John and their two-year-old daughter Caitlin.

"It means a lot," he said. "We don't have any family as such. My brother lives away and Sara has no family, no grandparents. We have nobody. We have been very well supported by the local school and Caitlin's godmother, Ann Duffy, has been very good to us."

York magistrates heard the taxi driver father, of Westfield Lane, South Milford, already had nine points on his driving licence when a police officer saw him using his mobile phone in Kirkgate, Sherburn-in-Elmet. His guilty plea to using the phone gave him three more points which meant at least a six-month driving ban unless he could convince magistrates that his was an exceptional case.

So he went into the witness box and explained why young John needed his father to drive.

The seven-year-old boy is slowly recovering after spending two months in a coma caused by his hereditary condition ADANE, which affects the brain.

"He has had to learn everything from scratch again, from being able to breath and swallowing," his father said.

For three months, he has been travelling daily to Leeds General Infirmary, collecting his partner's washing and running other errands. In the first month, Sara never came home and he has been looking after their young daughter as well. Two years ago, the family bought a bed for York Hospital so parents can stay with their desperately ill children.

"It is very important," he said of appeals like the £300,000 Guardian Angels Appeal for a children's high-dependency unit at York Hospital. "We know all hospitals are under-funded. It is not until you have a child or very close relative in hospital that you realise how much extra help they really do need." The family joined the appeal after John's hereditary condition ADANE, which causes brain swelling, put him in a life threatening coma when he was three. He recovered from that, but three months ago, he had a second attack.