Pictured: Amy Watkins, Jo Morris, Karl Hinett and Lorraine Watton

Kind hearted colleagues from The Co-operative Travel tackled the Wolverhampton Half Marathon in support of former soldier and charity fundraiser Karl Hinett.

The five strong team from the Dudley High Street branch first met Karl, 24, when they arranged his international flights and learnt he was travelling abroad to compete in marathons around the world, raising money for the Burns Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

At the age of 18, Karl suffered severe burns while serving with the British Army in the Staffordshire Regiment in Iraq. Over five years he has undergone several operations and to show his gratitude to the doctors and nurses he has pledged to run 52 marathons this year to raise funds.

His story inspired colleagues at The Co-operative Travel in Dudley to take part in Sunday's (4 Sept) challenging 13 mile event and they have raised £1,000. The proceeds will be split between the Burns Unit and Women's Aid, The Midcounties Co-operative's charity partner.

Jo Morris, Assistant Manager at Dudley said: "Karl is an incredible person who we all admire. He has gone to great lengths to raise money for charity and we wanted to do our bit to show him that we are all behind him 100%.

"We trained hard for the last few months and we really enjoyed the event. Karl is away training for a proposed Everest climb so I hope we made him proud. Karl has managed to raise over £8,000 already which is amazing and we just wanted to help him raise even more."

Jo and colleague Donna Forrest completed the Wolverhampton Half Marathon in 2 hours 30 minutes and 2 hours 13 minutes respectively, while Louise Shaw, Amy Watkins and Lorraine Watton walked the route in 3 hours 42 minutes.