MORE than £1,800 has been raised to support the family of Ellesmere Port murder victim Steven Carey.

Friends of the popular 31-year-old Everton fan launched a GoFundMe page just over a week ago in order to help pay for funeral costs.

Since then a number of generous donations have been made – including one totalling £820 – which has put them within touching distance of their £2,000 target.

Police were called to Pooltown Road, Ellesmere Port, on the night of Saturday, March 14, and found Mr Carey had sustained serious injuries. He was taken to the Countess of Chester Hospital but later died.

Ben Wilkinson, 25, of Waverton Road, Great Sutton, is accused of murdering Mr Carey as well as threatening him with a knife.

The online fundraising page 'A send off for Ste Carey' aims to ease the burden on Mr Carey's devastated family.

Graham Smith, from Ellesmere Port, has donated £820 to the appeal which came from a fund set up for his late brother Phil, who was a lifelong friend of Mr Carey's father.

He launched 'Phil's Fight Fund' in December 2018 with the aim of raising enough money for a potentially life-saving operation for his 58-year-old brother who had pancreatic cancer.

Sadly, Phil died in July last year but Graham has been using the fund to donate money to various causes and says his brother would have wanted to help Mr Carey's family.

He said: "The money we donated came from a fund we were raising to get an operation for my brother Phil. Unfortunately he lost his battle with cancer so we've been donating to various causes from his fund in his name.

"We donated to this because Phil knew Sam from their school days and would have wanted to help his family out. Sam is Steven's dad, Steven, but we all know him by that nickname.

"We have a What'sApp group of Everton fans from the Ellesmere port area and the £100 donations of the last few days have come from those members also."

Launching the appeal last month, friend Katy Jenkins said: "Steven Carey was sadly taken away from us in extremely devastating circumstances.

"This kind hearted and true Evertonian was taken far too soon, he was only 31 years old and hadn't even begun to live his life yet! His family and friends are all broken hearted and will never truly get over the loss of this funny, kind and witty young man.

"We wanted to set this GoFundMe page up to try and help his family out at this extremely sad and hard time for them, to try and ease the stress and pain that they are already going through after losing their youngest son.

"Your donations will help massively big or small to go towards helping them pay for his funeral costs and anything else they need towards giving him the best send off they possibly can. Thank you."

To support the fundraising appeal click here.