Who Cares Wins audience in tears as Dame Deborah James’ husband admits he was ‘in total awe’ of her

THE Who Cares Wins audience was reduced to tears as Dame Deborah James posthumously received an award in recognition of her tireless campaigning and fundraising.

Debs, who died in June aged 40, was announced the winner of the Christina Newbury Memorial award.

Her husband Sebastien Bowen, 43, said: “Deborah always used to ask me, are you proud of me? In reality I was in total awe of her.”

The award was presented by two of Deborah’s showbiz pals, the former Big Breakfast presenters Gaby Roslin and Chris Evans, and accepted on her behalf by Sebastien and her mum Heather.

In the audience were dad Alistair, sister Sarah and her husband Michael, and her brother Ben and fiance Ashley.

Alistair, 67, said: “It was so lovely to see the award presented by people who knew and loved Deborah. It made it more personal.”

The Christina Newbury award, named in honour of The Sun’s late health editor who pioneered Who Cares Wins – sponsored by The National Lottery – recognises special achievement in the field of health.

It was a fitting honour for Dame Deborah, who fought to get new cancer drugs made available to more people on the NHS, spearheaded The Sun’s No Time To Lose campaign and helped persuade the Government to reduce the bowel cancer screening age in England from 60 to 50 — a move that will save countless lives.

Accepting the award, Deborah’s mum Heather, 65, hailed the team at the Royal Marsden hospital, who kept Deborah alive for five years after her diagnosis – affording her more precious time with children Hugo, 14, and Eloise, 12.

Dr Nicos Fotiadis, Head of Interventional Radiology at the London hospital, was also nominated in the best doctor category.

As well as being close friends of Deborah’s, Gaby and Chris both have bowel cancer in their family. Chris lost his dad and two uncles to the disease, and recently had precancerous growths removed. Gaby’s dad, the broadcaster Clive Roslin, survived bowel cancer and she has been tested herself.

Gaby, who recently wrote the foreword to Debs’ second book and said she was wearing sequinned trousers in her friend’s honour, told The Sun backstage: “Deborah dressed up as poo so we keep talking about this. She got the message about the importance of check ups out there. She’s going to live on in all our hearts.”

Dame Debs, who was previously a Who Cares Wins judge, launched the 2022 awards just weeks before she died – knowing she wouldn’t make it to the ceremony.

But mum Heather insisted that wherever she was, Debs would be “raising a glass to toast all the heroes.”

She added: “Please remember for Deborah to live every minute of every day because you will never get it back and you do not know what is round the corner for you. Find a life worth enjoying, love deeply, always have rebellious hope and finally, have no regrets.”