FRIENDS of a teenager who died in a road accident have raised thousands of pounds to pay for a memorial in an Israeli park.

In just over two years, they brought in £18,000 which will be used to create a sport and recreation haven in Israel.

The Eliot Levy Avenue of Life will be part of British Park near Jerusalem created by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and will include a forest, sports area and park for disabled people.

Eliot, 17, of Park Road, Prestwich, died on December 26, 1996, three days after he was involved a road accident.

He was a passenger in a car involved in a collision with a stolen vehicle on Cheetham Hill Road.

Friends from King David High School decided to form the JNF Friends of Eliot Levy Committee to raise cash for a lasting memorial and organised many events, including a musical concert and evenings at a Manchester bar.

The latest, on June 17, was hailed as a "summer extravaganza" and included a fire-eater, limbo dancing and barbecue. David Abramson, 21, is a family friend of the Levys and chairman of the fund-raising committee.

He said: "We have been working on this for two-and-a-half years. It is a great feeling to have fulfilled this as the people involved are not regular fund-raisers and for them, this is a real achievement.

"We are happy to have been able to contribute to such a worthwhile and wonderful cause and we have enjoyed putting the events together. We did not do it in a shy way. We went out there and put on fantastic events and put a lot of work into it."

Committee members will visit the garden in November. David added: "We started off as a committee early in 1997 and the project was offered to us as something which we could do and that would be appropriate.

"We have been in contact with Eliot's parents and they appreciate what we are doing but it doesn't help bring their son back.

"They have been very supportive and it must be very hard for them. None of us can comprehend how hard it has been."

Eliot's father, Ian, said on behalf of himself and his wife, Joyce: "We are pleased and proud that these young people have given so much of themselves in Eliot's memory.

"But overall there is this tremendous sadness that he is not here and this overrides everything we do."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.