An 18-year-old first-time London marathon runner from Poplar who sparked suspicions after failing to be picked up at the 5k mark has been officially cleared and reinstated.

Ryan Lee was removed from the finishers' list after marathon officials questioned discrepancies in his time splits.

He was originally told by marathon organisers that he would need to prove his times by running 10k in just over half an hour.

Horrified at the prospect of disqualification, his distraught mum started a campaign to find pictures of Ryan between the start point and the 5k mark to vindicate him.

Ryan's mum Elizabeth Lee, 36, told News Shopper: "We are ecstatic, the relief is unbelievable.

"We had a phone call to say that Ryan was being reinstated on the finishers' website.

"Even though we knew he was innocent there was a panic that we wouldn't be able to prove it, I decided to start my campaign and people started helping.

"The response we got was amazing and we be forever grateful to all those amazing people who took time out of their own lives to help us.

"We can put this behind us now and Ryan can look toward to running again in 2017 and hopefully get a correct time with no problems."

Ms Lee scoured social media for images of her son in the Greenwich or Charlton leg of the run.

Ryan's plight even caught the attention of an American marathon blogger who usually spends his time unmasking Boston Marathon cheats.

Ohio-based Derek Murphy's investigation indicated there may have been an error with the recording of Ryan's start time, which made his timings look suspicious.

And now marathon officials have concluded their own investigation into what happened.

MORE TOP STORIES

Virgin Money London Marathon event director Hugh Brasher said: "We are pleased to say that we have now completed our investigation into the anomalies in Ryan Lee’s times and now confirm that he has been restored to the results with amended times.

"His official finishing time is 4.13:40.

"We would particularly like to thank Ryan’s mother Liz who, through social media, found a picture of Ryan running the course with his race number covered by his sweater.

"There are a number of ways we verify anomalies and photographs on course is one of them."