A RHYL paralympic swimmer has received the ultimate endorsement for his new business.

Following recognition as one of five ‘Disabled Entrepreneurs of the Year’ by Easyjet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Mark Williams has received a letter from from Kensington Palace offering congratulations from The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William for his company Limb-art.

Prince William has been part of the Paralympic swimmer’s life ever since June 21 1982 - the day The Prince was born and Mark lost his leg in a road traffic accident.

In 1988, Mark also met Prince William’s mother, HRH Princess Diana, at a celebratory meal before competing in the 1988 Seoul 1988 Paralympic Games, where he took home a bronze and silver for Team GB.

Mark said: “Just knowing that Prince Williams was interested to learn about Limb-art and what our prosthetic leg covers are doing for the confidence of people wearing prosthetic legs is an honour. While I can’t give away what he wrote, it’s a great endorsement for me and proves that I’m doing something right.”

The letter comes after a trip to Sir Haji-Ioannou’s London HQ for the awards ceremony which recognises disabled innovators, where he narrowly missed out on being crowned “Champion of Champions” - and a £20,000 prize - to airline seat inventors Able Move.

Despite founding Denbigh-based LIMB-art earlier this year, swimmer Mark Williams’ still took away a £10,000 prize from Stelios Philanthropic Foundation and had the opportunity talk through his innovative custom prosthetic leg covers - which encourages users to “Stand Out and Stand Proud” - with the billionaire.

Mark added: “It was fantastic to meet Stelios, when you meet him you realise he operates on another level - he immediately understood the scope of the business and it was great to present our idea to him to get the benefit of his attention to detail.

We designed the business to be scalable from the very beginning, so more than the £10,000 prize this award will let people know we’re here and , hopefully, Limb-art is a company that was designed to fix the problems of disabled people by disabled people, rather than just exploiting a gap in the market.

“Starting a business is hard when you’re not disabled, to be amongst the people who have made a success of their ventures gives me the confidence that we’re heading in the right direction.”