29 September 2023 , 09:31
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Strictly Come Dancing's Molly Rainford has paid a heartfelt tribute to her late cousin, who died aged 38 nearly a year after his care home shut down.
The 22-year-old, who starred on the BBC reality series last September, took to Instagram on Thursday evening to honour Ben Azevedo with a sweet message.
"Rest peacefully, cousin Ben," she captioned a snap of a framed photograph of the two of them together, adding an emoji of a heart and an angel.
Ben, the son of Molly's aunt Denise, had cerebral palsy and suffered from epilepsy as well as scoliosis. He was previously a resident at St. Elizabeth's, a centre in Hertfordshire serving people with complex needs for which Molly was also an ambassador.
“It’s such a great place,” she told the Barking and Dagenham Post in 2013, after putting together a production to raise funds for the facility. “We thought it would be brilliant if we could raise some money so they could buy new equipment.” Unfortunately, the centre closed in November 2022 after being rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
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Molly Rainford had previously raised money for her cousin's Ben centre (Dave Benett/Getty Images for War)"I've got to the point where I don't know where else to go, who else to phone. I sit on the computer until three in the morning still looking for places but it's not coming up with anything at all," Ben's mother Denise told the BBC at the time. "It's absolutely devastating – I never expected this to happen. We are all panicking."
In August 2022, care home St. Elizabeth's confirmed it had suffered difficulties in recruitment and retention, explaining that a shortage of trained care staff in the UK had proven "overwhelming" for the centre.
"To the point where we are no longer able to guarantee the safety of our residents, and are now increasingly unable to meet our regulatory requirements," it said in a statement.
Molly shot to fame in 2012 on Britain's Got Talent, after wowing Simon Cowell and the other judges with her audition of Jennifer Hudson's One Night Only from Dreamgirls. She sailed her way into the finals, singing Beyoncé's Ava Maria and finishing in sixth place.
Molly Rainford on Britain's Got Talent in 2012 (Ken McKay/Thames/REX/Shutterstock)
Molly Rainford was signed to Sony Music after Britain's Got Talent (David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock)She was later signed to Sony Music before enrolling in the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London on a five-year-long scholarship.
In 2022, Rainford competed in the twentieth series of Strictly Come Dancing alongside partner Carlos Gu. She enjoyed major success on the glitzy show, reaching the final and finishing as a runner-up. She has also starred in CBBC’s Nova Jones as the Intergalactic superstar, and in 2023, she landed the role of Anna Knight in EastEnders.