A POOLE dad has launched a fundraising campaign to have his leg amputated and replaced with a prosthesis.

Rob Franks, 39, was diagnosed with a tumour in one of his legs in 2011. The former chef underwent an operation to remove it, but during a routine check-up just two years later, doctors discovered it had returned - and was this time seven inches long.

Rob, a sportsman who first started playing cricket at the age of six, then went through a second operation to remove the tumour.

Left with nerve damage, Rob was forced to use crutches and a wheelchair to get around.

He joined a Dorset cricket club for people with disabilities, but in his second game for the team, his leg collapsed beneath him. Surgeons managed to repair the break with pins, plates and a metal rod during a four-hour operation, but Rob said he has been left in "agony" from the fracture, which will never fully heal.

He has now decided to have his leg amputated above the knee.

Rob, who lives in Poole with his wife Carla, six-year-old son Harry, and 11 year-old stepson Oliver, wants to raise £15,000 to fund the operation privately as it is not available to him on the NHS.

He said: "I'm not the type of person to ask for handouts and I feel genuinely embarrassed having to ask people who don't know me for donations but I'm at the end of my tether and will do anything it takes to be pain free with a new leg and able to get on with our lives."

Alongside funding the amputation, Rob wants to purchase two prosthetic limbs – one to use so he can continue to play the sports he loves, and one for day-to-day life.

He said: “It would completely change my life, I would be over the moon.

“My wife Carla is supporting me fully and agrees this would be the best thing all round.

“I don’t want to be in pain any longer – I want to be able to play with my two children in the garden, I want to be the husband my wife deserves and not someone who is forced to stay at home.”

For more information, or to donate, visit gofundme.com/robs-amputation-fund