THE mother of a Darwen teenager blind since birth says his life has been changed by a computer bought for him by a local charity.

David Connelly, 14, attends St Vincent's School for the Blind and Partially Sighted in Liverpool during the week, where he can work on state-of-the-art equipment. But when he returns home for the weekend he struggles to do his homework on his Braille machine.

His mum Isabelle, of Hesse Street, is a single mother-of-three could not afford the £2,000 talking computer equipment he needed. But the Darwen-based Potter Huntington Trust, originally set up to relieve hardship among those working primarily in the wallcoverings industry, decided David was a worthy case.

The computer talks through David's every action and will help him improve his spelling and speed up his homework, and in the long term improve his education.

Mrs Connelly, who also has sons aged nine and 19, said: "Some friends from the Blind Society told me about the trust so I wrote to see if I could get help. The computer is quite expensive. He will definitely need it for his future skills and his spelling his already getting better. He's delighted with it and we are so grateful to the trust.

"David is very keen on music and plays the guitar in the school band so the computer will help him with that too."

Trust secretary Lesley Darby said: "David's mum wrote for our help and we felt he fit our criteria."