A LEADING solicitor from Burnley has died after a lengthy battle with a rare brain tumour.

Timothy Frost, who received an MBE in 2008 for services to criminal justice, died in Cumbria aged 53.

He became a director at KJ Commons Solicitors, in Carlisle, after his colleague Kevin Commons was killed by Derrick Bird in the infamous Cumbria shootings of 2010.

A former pupil at Burnley’s St John’s RC Primary School and St Theodore’s RC Boys’ High School, he moved to the Lake District in the early 1990s after studying at Newcastle University.

He was diagnosed with granular cell astrocytoma, a rare type of malignant brain tumour, in September 2011, and died on January 16.

Mr Frost’s brother, Roger, a Briercliffe councillor, called him ‘a very, very brave man’.

Coun Frost said: “ To my knowledge, he was only the 23rd person in the country to get this rare brain tumour.”

Mr Frost is survived by his civil partner, John McDowell, and eight siblings; Roger, Stephen, Isobel, Tony, Pauline, Judith and Maria.

His funeral was held at St Cuthbert’s RC Church, Wigton, on January 23, and was attended by around 400 people.

KJ Commons closed all of its offices on the day as a mark of respect to a man described by Roger as ‘the most well-known solicitor in Carlisle’.

Roger added: “He was so brave. and he was very well-respected in the legal world”