Victoria Milligan, 45, was enjoying lunch with a friend when callous thieves stole her prosthetic legs
Heartless thieves have stolen £30,000 prosthetic legs belonging to a widow who lost her husband and daughter in a devastating speedboat crash.
Victoria Milligan, 45, was with friends at Megan’s restaurant on Kings Road in London when two men riding motorcycles and armed with knives broke into her Audi Q5 on Sunday.
The thieves made off with a suitcase in the boot containing the 45-year-old’s tailor made prosthetic legs which are useless to anyone except her.
Ms Milligan was fitted with the limbs when she survived a speedboat tragedy in 2013, which claimed the lives of her husband Nick and daughter Emily, eight.
The family were thrown overboard into the water in the picturesque Camel Estuary on a May Day Bank Holiday, suffering terrible injuries as the out-of-control boat circled over them at high speed.
Their daughter Olivia, then 12, survived unscathed.
Ms Milligan lost her left leg, her son Kit, then seven, required 12 operations to save his, while her other daughter Amber, 14, was left with scars on her left thigh and hand.
Ms Milligan’s white Audi Q5 was parked around the corner on Michael’s Road, Fulham, when a van driver saw the two men smash the windows and steal a grey Eastpak four-wheeled suitcase – containing Victoria’s prosthetic legs.
She said: ‘It’s just so upsetting because they are so valuable to me, and so bespoke that you can’t just go out and buy some more, my leg needs to be recast and the legs remade which will take about three months.
‘I think what they would have just done obviously is scooted off and opened it and then just dumped them somewhere.
Ms Milligan was fitted with the limbs when she survived a speedboat tragedy in 2013, which claimed the lives of her husband Nick and daughter Emily, eight
The 45-year-old was with friends at Megan’s restaurant on Kings Road in London (pictured) when two men riding motorcycles and armed with knives broke into her Audi Q5 on Sunday
‘We came out, there was a witness, a guy in a van and he said two men on scooters with knives smashed the window and opened the car and got into the boot and took the bag.
‘It was quite a big heavy bag so they probably thought they were going to get something quite valuable, but what they probably didn’t account for was three legs.’
‘I think what they would have done when they opened the bag is just to dump the legs somewhere as they have no resale value.’
Ms Milligan’s legs are designed down to each hand painted freckle.
Her blade is used for her career as a personal trainer and for her motivational speaking work, while she also owns a mid-heel leg and a leg specially made to take high heels.
She said: ‘These legs make me feel like the Victoria before the accident, allowing me to run and even wear heels again.
‘They are like works of art, my prosthetist and his team at The London Prosthetic Centre are geniuses, exactly matching my remaining leg down to the right skin tone and hand painted freckles.
Ms Milligan took to social media to tell people about the heartless theft
‘They are so important to me and I feel very lost without them, it is horrendous.
‘They take about three months each to make, it’s a very difficult thing to match the skin tone, freckles are hand painted onto the legs.
‘They allow me to be who I was, emotionally I feel very different without them.
‘I was wearing my everyday leg at the time, but these other three are amazing.
‘I keep thinking to myself why did I take all the legs with me that day, but I thought I might go for a run and I didn’t know what shoes I was going to wear to the party the night before’
‘It’s not like you just have to take different pairs of shoes, you have to take different legs as well.’
Victoria said police have told her CCTV of the area might not have covered the theft and they could just be dumped and never found again.
She said: ‘It’s very frustrating, it was broad daylight and we came out of the restaurant and they said two minutes before these people had broken into my car.
‘My friend who lives up the road says it happens quite a lot, there’s a climbing centre nearby and quite often mums are picking up children and have handbags on the seat which these guys are smashing windows to get.
‘They are opportunists, they wouldn’t have a clue my legs were in there but I would have hoped once they saw them they would have handed them in somewhere.
‘They are so specific to me, the socket on these legs has been made to every tiny bump and bone on my leg and they cannot be worn be any other person.’
Anyone who finds the legs or luggage is urged to contact the Metropolitan Police or Victoria via her website victoriamilligan.co.uk