CANCER: HIDDEN KILLER ROBS CHILDREN OF MOTHER

Dr Pratt, who has been left to bring up Sophie, seven, Sam, six, and one-year-old Evie, said he was still in shock. “It’s difficult to explain to the children what has happened because even though Katie was ill for two years, it is a shock that she has gone,” he said.

Pharmacist Katie had ­malignant melan­oma, which kills more than 2,000 people in ­Britain every year. It is a more ­dangerous form of skin cancer than non-melanoma, which can be treated using cream and light therapy.

Katie, of Hertford, was ­diagnosed in July 2008, but the mole from where the cancer started could never be found. Dr Pratt said: “We are a medical family but if you can’t see anything wrong on your skin it is difficult to act. By the time something was noticed it had spread to other parts of her body.

“We knew that the end was inevitable but she managed to survive for two years during which she was able to see the children grow up. The older two understand quite a bit but Evie doesn’t understand why Mummy is no longer here.”