A young woman has been kicked off the London Marathon after an admin error because she shares a name with another runner.

Hundreds of people, including champion runner Paula Radcliffe, have begged the event to let Sarah Wilson, 25, run her first marathon.

Ms Wilson, a sales operations analyst from London, trained for over three months and raised more than £1,400 for St John's Ambulance before being told she could no longer run.

The charity deleted her from their list of runners, she explained, because a junior member of staff assumed her name was a duplicate.

She did not find out until she telephoned the charity on Monday to find out when she could pick up her kit.

"I was signed up to the 2018 marathon and I was injured last year so I had to defer my place last March," Ms Wilson explained.

"Then, I got confirmation for my place in the 2019 marathon from the charity, when I called up on Monday to find out when I get my running gear from them, they basically said 'we only have one Sarah Wilson on the system and she's from York'.