A £70,000 appeal has been launched to fund a bionic leg for a 20 year-old trainee electrician who lost a limb to cancer.

Surgeons amputated Billy Lee's right leg during an operation to remove a tumour.

His family now hope to allow him a normal life by raising £70,000 for a specialist prosthetic limb.

Parents Rebecca (Bex) and Spencer Lee, of Wisbech St Mary, have been taking it in turns with Mr Lee's girlfriend Shirley Cooper to stay with him at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham.

It was there he underwent an operation to have his right leg and part of his hip amputated last week.

Mrs Lee explained that her son first started complaining about pain in his knee last summer, but it was only in November that he was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer known as sarnovia sarcoma.

She said: 'When the diagnosis came it was a real shock; he had a 10cm tumour at the top of his leg, it was the size of a can of baked beans. On December 1 his leg snapped through the stress of the tumour making him bed-bound in Addenbrooke's, before being transferred to the Birmingham hospital.'

The family have set up a Facebook page for people to make donations to a charity they are launching to raise the £70,000. On-going fundraising will be needed to help pay for five yearly maintenance and repairs of the leg, which will cost around £18,500 each time.

Mrs Lee said: 'We have done a lot of research and found this 'Helix 3D' leg and hip prosthetic but the NHS will not fund it.'

A calendar of events will be available on the Billy Lee Walk On MY Own Two Feet Fundraising page.