Prince Harry’s war hero friend reunited with prosthetic legs stolen from car

Prince Harry’s war hero friend has spoken of his relief after being reunited with his prosthetic legs that were stolen from his car.

Triple amputee and ex-Royal Marine Mark Ormrod MBE woke up on Wednesday morning to find his car had been broken into while parked in a disabled space at a west London Premier Inn overnight.

The gold medal winning Invictus Games athlete, praised by Harry for his fundraising work to support veterans, revealed his prosthetic legs had been swiped from the back by thieves who shattered the windows.

Mr Ormrod was on patrol in Helmand Province with the Marines on Christmas Eve in 2007 when he knelt on an improvised bomb, with the blast ripping off both legs and his right arm.

After appealing online for the prosthetic legs to be returned, a woman reached out to say she found them dumped in an alley by her house at 8pm on Tuesday night.

He wrote online: "So on my way out of London tonight I checked my emails and DM's and had messages from a woman who said she'd found my stuff just after 8pm last night in an alley by her house and somehow saw my social media post about it!"

"I now have everything back," Mr Ormrod added.

Just hours earlier, the veteran had written in his social media appeal: "Not the best start to my day! Had my car broken into last night.They stole a bag full of sweaty gym cloths, another bag with my JiuJitsu Gi in and what’s really inconvenient is they took a set of my prosthetic legs!”

The athlete said the hotel’s security cameras did not capture the incident.

Mr Ormrod wrote: “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 to my car was blocked by another car (might be time to reposition those cameras).

“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 war veteran has previously spoken of the horror explosion that led to his amputations,saying: “I was lying naked and dying in the desert. I just thought I can’t live like this. I turned to the corporal and shouted: ‘Stick a bullet through my head’.

“I was serious. I remember lying there thinking that I would feel like someone had punched me in the back of the head and then it would go black and it would be okay.”

In 2021, Prince Harry penned a heartfelt letter to Mr Ormrod thanking him for his decade of service to the Royal Marines Charity. In the same year he was given the ‘freedom of Plymouth’ by the city council for his charity work raising more than £500,000 through different challenges to support veterans.

He has completed several long distance runs using his prosthetic legs to raise money for the Reorg charity. Mr Omrod has also swam long distances and even completed a 99.9 mile overnight cycle challenge last year.