‘Our son raised £1 million walking 10km on prosthetic legs'

Mum-of-eight Paula Hudgell, 53, and her husband, Mark, 56, from Kent, adopted six-year-old Tony after he was so badly abused by his birth parents he was forced to have both legs amputated. In June, Tony walked 10km on his new prosthetic legs, raising over £1 million for the hospital that saved him

- SUSANNA GALTON

'Propelling his little body along on his small crutches and grinning from ear to ear, our boy finally reached the end of his 10km challenge and my heart was bursting with pride. For six-year-old Tony – or Bear, as he’s nicknamed – had only had his new legs a matter of weeks. But with grit and a lot of determination he cheerfully smashed all our expectations, as he had throughout his whole short life.

It was back in 2015 when I first met Tony. He was in hospital, then a four-month-old baby weighing just 9lb 7oz. My husband Mark, who works in asset management, and I were already parents to seven children – Ben, who’s now 31, Ryan, 28, Chloe, 25, Kyle, 18, Jessica, 14, Jaden, 13, and Lacey, eight. But we loved having babies in the house so we became foster parents, too.

The social worker explained Tony had had his limbs broken and was really poorly. I thought, “That’s OK, limbs mend.” But when I met this tiny baby and the nurse filled me in on his history, I was horrified.

At just five weeks old, at the hands of his abusive parents, he’d had all his limbs broken and suffered dislocations of his ankle, toes and thumbs and multiple fractures. He had been left without medical attention for up to 10 days, by which time his body had just given up.

He developed sepsis – toxic shock – and multiple organ failure, which affected his bones. He also had a mass on the brain and ended up needing life support. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the amazing NHS staff working so tirelessly on him, he would not have survived.

If I’d known about all these complications before meeting Tony, I wouldn’t have agreed to take him in. It was too much and our youngest, Lacey, was still only two. But after meeting him, how could I turn my back on him? And how glad I am now that I didn’t.