A FORMER rugby league star turned Peaky Blinders actor has been in York with his wife trialling the 'bionic legs', which have helped her walk again.

Keith Mason is an ex professional Rugby league player who played for 14 years, winning the Challenge Cup in 2004 and playing for both of England and Wales.

He left the sport to take up acting staring in Guy Ritchie's King Arthur as well as Peaky Blinders, Bulletproof and Cold Feet. 

He also works as a personal trainer, and fell in love with a client he helped to walk again. Riona Kelly was left paralysed from the neck down after suffering a stroke at the age of 34.

She was told she was unlikely to regain feeling in her legs but after three years she did, but sadly she  suffered a second stroke two days before New Year’s Eve in 2018, and the couple are having to repeat the process all over again.

On Sunday, April 3, they were in York and walked hand in hand down Shambles in the city centre with Riona using a specially made AI frame for her legs.

Keith wrote on Twitter: "We proved the doctors wrong.

"The thought of us walking hand in hand around the city of York for hours was inconceivable just a few months ago, thank God for inventors, innovation and visionary’s who created Riona’s bionic legs which have AI and the first ever to be made."