Joe Leake said he could not stand the idea of children waking up on Christmas Day with nothing to open

SPEND your days in A&E saving lives – yet still find the time and motivation to spend some of your hard-earned money on presents for strangers.

That’s what Royal Free Hospital accident and emergency nurse Joe Leake did this week.

On Tuesday the medic, who has worked in the Hampstead hospital’s emergency department for 22 years, appeared unannounced at the New Journal’s Camden Town offices armed with high-end boxes of Lego toys for us to give to those in need.

Mr Leake said: “I just cannot bear the idea that somewhere in Camden a child could wake up on Christmas morning and not have a present to open. I just will not have that.

“I live in Camden Town and my partner is a paramedic at the Cressy Road station in South End Green every year. The paramedics buy toys for children and this year I decided I wanted to as well.”