Abused as a Baby and Left Without Legs, Five-Year-Old Tony Hudgell Walked 10 Kilometres — and Changed the Law

When Tony Hudgell was six weeks old, he suffered catastrophic injuries at the hands of his biological parents. Delayed medical care left doctors with no choice but to amputate both of his legs. What followed was not only a childhood rebuilt on prostheses, but a campaign that raised more than £1.8 million for the hospital that saved him and helped rewrite British law on child cruelty.

Tony was born in October 2014 in Kent. At 41 days old he was assaulted in a filthy flat in Maidstone. He sustained multiple fractures, dislocations and facial trauma, then was left untreated for about ten days. By the time he reached hospital he was in organ failure, toxic shock and sepsis. He spent weeks fighting for his life at Evelina London Children’s Hospital. He would later undergo more than twenty operations. Both legs were amputated below the knee; one hip remained permanently dislocated. He is also deaf in one ear.

His birth parents, Jody Simpson and Anthony Smith, were each jailed for ten years in 2018. Tony was fostered and then adopted by Paula and Mark Hudgell of Kings Hill, Kent.

In June 2020, aged five and inspired by Captain Sir Tom Moore’s lockdown walks for the NHS, Tony set himself a target of £500 by covering 10 kilometres on his new prosthetic legs. He walked a little each day. The appeal exploded. By the time he finished the distance he had raised about £1.8 million for Evelina London — the hospital that had kept him alive. Part of the money later helped fund a children’s day-surgery unit.

The same story drove a legal campaign led by his adoptive mother. “Tony’s Law,” enacted in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, increased maximum sentences for causing or allowing serious harm to a child (from 10 to 14 years) and for causing a child’s death (from 14 years to life). A later campaign associated with the family pressed for a child-cruelty register similar in spirit to sex-offender monitoring.

Tony went on to found the Tony Hudgell Foundation, take on further challenges, and receive a Pride of Britain award. In the 2024 New Year Honours he was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to the prevention of child abuse. At nine he became the youngest person ever to receive the honour.

His early life was defined by violence and medical emergency. What the public came to know was a boy who, on artificial legs, chose to walk for other children — and whose name is now attached to the law meant to protect them.

Sources

• BBC News, “Tony Hudgell, 5, completes 10km walk on prosthetic legs” (June 2020); “Tony Hudgell raises £1m…”; “New Years Honours 2024: Tony Hudgell, 9, youngest to receive medal”
• Evelina London Children’s Charity, “Tony Hudgell’s trailblazing first steps”
• Tony Hudgell Foundation, “Tony’s Story”