TWO sisters from North Yorkshire will take to the stage at London’s 02 Arena this month after landing a place in the final of a national singing contest.

Emily and Danielle Atkinson, aged 12 and ten respectively, beat off competition from 8,000 hopefuls to reach the last 75 of OpenMic UK. The winner will walk away with a recording contract.

The talented girls, who write their own music and lyrics, decided to join together as a girl band about 12 months ago and call themselves Disctracted.

They are now hoping the people of North Yorkshire will get behind them by voting for them by text.

Proud dad Glyn said: “They only got together as a duo about a year ago and now they’re off to the O2 Arena – they are over the moon.

“The competition started about six months ago with a first audition and since then they’ve got through a regional final and an area final and now they’re through to the grand final – we are very excited.

“They have three-and-a-half minutes and it’s down to them what they do.

“We still haven’t decided what they’ll do, but they will probably perform one cover song and one of the songs they’ve written themselves.”

Emily and Danielle, who live in a village near Boroughbridge, had their first taste of success when they reached the final of York’s Community Idol talent contest in the summer. They then won York’s Y Factor competition, and reached the regional finals of the national Festival4Stars contest.

Meanwhile, Danielle, a pupil at Green Hammerton Primary School, was crowned Best Newcomer at the Powersound contest in Bury.

Disctracted will be competing in the under-18 category. As well as performing to impress the judges and the audience at the O2 Arena on January 15, the public can also vote for the act they believe should win.

To vote for Disctracted, text the code “open39” to 86222.

To listen to their songs, log on to disctracted.com