An amateur cricketer has launched a fundraising appeal to have his own leg amputated after suffering years of chronic pain due to tumours and injury.

Rob Franks, 39, is desperate to raise the £15,000 that will allow him to have the procedure privately after the NHS said it could not fund it.

The father-of-two takes 29 pain killers a day and said the constant agony he was living with had changed his whole outlook on life.

“I’m just a shell of the person I used to be,” he told the Telegraph.

“I used to be really happy and I want to be that person for my wife and children.”

Mr Franks discovered his first tumour in 2011 after being rushed to hospital following an injury during a game of cricket.