PRAYERS are being said in churches across Dover for a Christian youth worker seriously injured in a road accident.

Marcus Richards, 42, from Folkestone Road, Dover, was thrown out of his vehicle after it left the coastbound carriageway of the the A2 at Bridge, near Canterbury, and rolled over on a grass bank.

Mr Richards suffered head injuries and was taken to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, but later transferred to Kings College Hospital in London where he underwent surgery. His condition is said to be stable.

No other vehicle was believed to have been involved in the accident which happened at about 4pm last Friday.

His wife, Cheryl, has been at his bedside at the hospital in London. The couple have two young children, Charlotte and Jamie.

Mr Richards worked at Dover's Buckland Paper Mill until it closed in 2000 when he got a printing job in Ashford. A back injury forced him to give up the job, and he became an outreach youth worker with Cross-Links, the community project on Buckland Estate which is run by local churches.

He had been volunteering as the co-ordinator of the children's clubs at the Ark Christian Centre in Tower Hamlets and had already received Kent County Council training for youth work.