Royal Military Policeman urges men to 'check their cockerels' as he shares rare cancer battle

Gavin Brooks – aka the Screaming Cockerel – has been in the British Army for more than 23 years. 

In 2021, the 44-year-old Royal Military Police Warrant Officer Class 2 was diagnosed with an aggressive form of penile cancer. 

His Screaming Cockerel pages on social media follow his battle to fight the disease and raise awareness of the condition.

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Unfortunately, when WO2 Brooks first sought medical advice, the condition was misdiagnosed, as he explains in the video above.

"I think penile cancer is one of the lesser known things by GPs, so it's a case of whether more information could be given to say this is a thing, this does happen," he said.

"Had I have got diagnosed earlier on and been sent for that referral, I could have been looking at something totally different now, I could have ended up just with just a circumcision and that might have been me."  

He is now devoting all his energy to campaigning for men to "Check their Cockerels!". 

He is encouraging his followers to send him pictures of cockerels to get his message out and to try to help others avoid what he is going through.