Duke of Sussex’s Afghanistan ally has false legs stolen from car

A TRIPLE amputee veteran of Afghanistan, hailed as a “real hero” by the Duke of Sussex, has had his prosthetics stolen from his car.

Royal Marine Mark Ormrod, 40, expressed disbelief that someone would break into a vehicle and steal equipment so clearly indispensable for an amputee.

The father-of-three from Plymouth, who joined the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf last September, posted a video online of his car, its back window completely smashed. “Not the best start to my day!!!” he wrote on social media.

“Had my car broken into last night. They stole a bag full of sweaty gym cloths, [sic] another bag with my Jiujitsu Gi in and, what’s really inconvenient, they took a set of my prosthetic legs!

“Despite having 3 cameras pointing at my car I was told by the staff at the hotel that they couldn’t see any activity as the view ... was blocked.”

He added: “The sad thing is to think that someone would break into a car parked in a disabled parking space and steal equipment someone needs to live independently and not even care.”

The post attracted hundreds of messages of support and offers of help from shocked followers.

Mr Ormrod was serving in Helmand province on Christmas Eve in 2007 when he detonated a Taliban booby-trap that ripped off both his legs and his right arm. Medics pronounced him dead twice but despite his injuries, he pulled through, becoming the UK’S first triple amputee to survive the war. Since then, he has raised a huge amount of money for the Royal Marines Charity, running 3,500 miles across the United States on prosthetic blades and cycling 3,000 miles in the UK, as well as competing in the Invictus Games.

He met the Duke while in recovery and the royal has since proudly dubbed him Britain’s own “superman”.

In 2021, when he announced he was going to have a break from his charity work to spend more time with his family, the Duke wrote to Mr Ormrod thanking him for his decade of work.

Mr Ormrod told the Sunday People: “The Taliban did me a favour because it set my life on a path I could never have dreamed of ... when I lost my limbs and almost my life, I wanted to die. I wanted someone to put a gun to my head .... ”