Of all the boxers I've met...my daughter is the greatest fighter

HE IS THE ex-boxer from a London council estate who turned himself into a platinum-selling 90s soul star.

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But for the last eight years, Kenny Thomas has been fighting a very different battle to save the life of his youngest daughter.

Christina, 12, was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumour when she was four.

"I was told it was inoperable, and therefore terminal." Kenny, 56, recalls. "They gave her six months."

Some parents might have accepted that, and the standard course of disease-managing chemo and palliative end-of-life care. Thomas did not.

The singer, best known for his 1991 smash Thinking About Your Love, has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chinese medicine and was aware of alternative cancer treatments.

"I was talking to doctors abroad and looking at things like immunotherapy. An Indian professor told me that if I was looking for the holy grail of brain tumour treatment, I should look at dendritic cell therapy in Germany."

Although hugely expensive, the family's many visits to Cologne kept Christina alive. "All the boxers I've met and she is the greatest fighter," Kenny beams. "She's a walking miracle, defying all the odds."

The tumour a high-grade glioma has not grown for some time. "There's been some shrinkage, and it remains stabilised. The doctors are happy because it's not progressing. Thanks to the cell therapy we might have got ahead of the curve."

Kenny was set to shoulder all the costs, but music biz buddies rallied round, including soul stars Jocelyn Brown and Omar.

He'd been singing with 80s group Living In A Box, whose keyboardist Marcus Vere also stepped up. "Marcus put on two fundraising nights in Chelsea with Tony Hadley, Midge Ure, Kim Wilde, Carol Decker, Heaven 17, Go West, Beverley Knight, Nick Kershaw...I had to pinch myself."

The shows raised £40,000, enough to cover the Cologne trips. "If I'd done it alone, we'd have been on the floor now financially, but you'd do anything to save your daughter's life."