A BIG-HEARTED teenager who was set to donate her Ed Sheeran tickets to a scammed terminally ill cancer sufferer has spoken of her joy after the venue stepped in to save the day.

Leah Napolitano, 17, was horrified to discover a poorly teenager had been refused entry to an Ed Sheeran concert after the tickets she purchased turned out to be fake.

Dion Yates, 18, bought tickets on Gumtree for the sold-out gig at the O2 Arena, in London, for a price of £600.

She reportedly queued at the venue for the Wednesday night show with her mother Kerry, sister Jacy and friend Holly, but they were turned away after staff members found that the tickets were invalid.

Dion suffers from Ewing’s sarcoma, a cancer of the bone and soft tissue.

Kind-hearted Leah, of Queensland Drive, Colchester, decided to offer her help after reading a post on social media.

“I found out about Dion’s situation through Facebook when the post went viral, with thousands of likes and shares,” she said.

“I thought it was awful. Here is a poor girl already in an awful situation and now someone had put her in an even worse one.

“I straight away wanted to do something, so messaged her mum Kerry on Facebook and said I would like to donate my tickets. I have two tickets to his show on June 22.

“She was so lovely and humble and did not expect it.

“She thought about rejecting the offer because she didn’t want me to miss out.

“I said I would message her once the tickets came.”

But as the social media post was shared again and again, the O2 stepped in, offering Dion VIP tickets to the June performance.

“Everyone is a winner now really,” said Leah.

“She will hopefully meet Ed Sheeran now and will get to the show - which is all I cared about.

“I have my whole life ahead of me and I wanted this girl to fulfil her wish.”

She added: “I didn’t do this for any other reason than to help her.

“The feeling of doing something for someone else feels good, she obviously has a hard life, it was an easy decision.

“She paid £600 for those fake tickets.

“The buyer knew about her condition, but still sold the fake tickets. It is horrible.”

A spokesman for Gumtree said: “It is heart breaking to hear of Kerry and Dion’s experience.

“This was an elaborate scam from a sophisticated fraudster who went to great lengths to make the scam convincing.

“We encourage anyone that comes across any type of scam to report it to us immediately.”