Israel appeals for international aid over ‘largest ever’ wildfire

Israel’s allies in Europe are sending over aid in the coming hours to tackle blazing wildfires after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the situation a national emergency, asking for international aid.

Wildfires raging outside of Jerusalem have reportedly destroyed almost 5,000 acres of land, including 3,000 acres of forest, according to Fire and Rescue Services.

Firefighter planes from Greece, Cyprus, Croatia and Italy will arrive to tackle the blaze in the coming hours, with reports that Ukraine, Spain, France and more have also committed to sending aid.

The cause of the flames remain unclear, although Mr Netanyahu said that 18 people had been arrested on suspicion of igniting the wildfires.

At least a dozen people have been hospitalised and 10 have been treated in the field by medical professionals.

“This is perhaps the largest fire ever in the country,” Jerusalem’s district fire department commander Shmulik Friedman told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

He warned that winds of 60 miles an hour were making the situation challenging and could dramatically increasing the risk of the fires “in the near future”.

“It will continue for a very long time. We are far from having control.”

Mapped: Where temperatures could hit record-breaking 30C today

Temperatures are expected to soar to 30C in the UK today, as the country prepares for the hottest day of the year so far.

Britain could face both the earliest point on record that temperatures reach 30C, and the warmest start to May on record.

Met Office meteorologist Michael Silverstone said temperatures could climb to “29C or even 30C”.

He added: “If we reach 30C on Thursday, it will be the earliest date in May that the UK has seen 30C since our records began in 1860.”

Temperatures are expected to be hottest in London and the south of England. By contrast, cloud and showers have been forecast to move southeast across Scotland and Northern Ireland into northern England.

The Met Office said temperatures reached 26.7C in Wisley, Surrey on Wednesday – making it the warmest day of the year so far.

The previous high was 24.5C in St James’s Park, London, on Monday, which reached 24.7C on Tuesday.

Despite the soaring temperatures, the Met Office has ruled out a heatwave this week.

Mr Silverstone said it looks “unlikely” the UK will reach a heatwave – which is defined as three consecutive days of temperatures exceeding the “heatwave threshold”, which varies across the country.

The threshold is 25C for most of the UK, rising to 28C in London.

“Admittedly, it could be close for a few places in the South, though, with temperatures either today or Friday only just failing to exceed the required threshold,” Mr Silverstone said.

But temperatures are expected to ease by Friday, and Saturday will bring cooler conditions of 14C to 18C across the UK.

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has urged caution around open-water swimming after a 32 per cent increase in water-related incidents last month compared with the same period last year.

Kamala Harris breaks silence in first post-election speech

Former vice president Kamala Harris has mercilessly rebuked President Donald Trump in her first extensive remarks since leaving Washington, D.C., in January, calling his tariff-based trade war the “greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history.”

Harris, the defeated Democratic nominee in last year’s presidential election, spoke in San Francisco at the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America, an organization that supports left-leaning women for public office.

“I know tonight’s event happens to coincide with the 100 days after the inauguration and I’ll leave it to others to give a full accounting of what has happened so far,” Harris said at the Palace Hotel gala.

“But I will say this, instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals.”

Harris took aim at Trump’s shrinking of the federal workforce and his tariffs, which, “as I predicted, are clearly inviting a recession.”

She also championed protesters who have stood up to the administration’s actions, “saying it is not okay to detain and disappear American citizens or anyone without due process.”

How Man Utd and Spurs can thrive again thanks to Europa League lesson

When Bodo/Glimt prepare for a game like Tottenham Hotspur, one policy is to try and not look at the names. The tiny Norwegian club has plenty of experience there, having faced Lazio, Arsenal, Manchester United and Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic during their recent rise.

The aim is to just see players as units, and their various strengths and weaknesses. It is a very rational way to look at something that could otherwise involve a lot of emotion, particularly for an Arctic Circle town that has a population of just 55,000 – almost 8,000 less than the 62,850 capacity of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

“We only think it’s funny to show we can be as good as any name in the world,” says defender Odin Bjortuft.

The general perception of these four Europa League semi-finalists, and how they view football, is going to hugely frame the outlook of these ties.

On either side of both semi-finals – Bodo/Glimt v Tottenham Hotspur and Athletic Club v Manchester United – there are two fan-owned clubs who organically built on what they’ve got.

Bodo are authentically one of the great stories of modern football. Their run to become the first Norwegian club to reach a semi-final is not just something that shouldn’t be possible. It is all the more impressive since it has been achieved after years of sustained progress. This is no one-off. They are a model of diligently building on what you have, and being “smarter” about it.

“If you go back 10 years, the club was nearly bankrupt,” says director of football Havard Sakariassen. “Nobody has given us money outside of prize money or us doing well. There is no owner here. Nothing like that.”

Athletic have meanwhile enjoyed a rebirth, as their famous recruitment policy feels like it now offers even greater value in the modern game. By only selecting players who are connected to the Basque Country, they have benefited from the area’s burgeoning talent production. Club legend Ernesto Valverde is meanwhile a coach who fits, and last year’s Spanish Cup win is seen as having given the club a badly needed new confidence, as they lifted their first trophy in 40 years. They’re now going for a second in two as well as a first European trophy, all in their own stadium. There’s considerable romance to all this.

On the other side, there are two billionaire-owned clubs that have burnt through billions of Premier League and Champions League money in the last few years alone. And yet here are United, boosted by the return of Amad Diallo and Matthijs de Ligt, and Spurs, probably without Son Heung Min are, desperate for a Europa League to save their seasons – and maybe more.

While there are obviously pure football and emotional reasons for both to want to win this trophy, there’s also an inescapable financial reality. They both need the victory, and Champions League qualification, to satisfy profit and sustainability rules (PSR) and future growth. It isn’t quite what the great glory of European football is supposed to be about.

These two semi-finals have nevertheless become about admirable diligence against extreme waste; immense over-performance against jaw-dropping under-performance.

It’s hard to know what should be more unlikely: Bodo getting this far, or both United and Spurs being so low in the Premier League. The English two are somehow disproving Sakariassen’s true point that “it’s easier if you have money, that’s for sure”.

While none of this is to argue that it would be better for two Premier League clubs to go out, many in European football are only too keen to talk about potential moral lessons.

It was following last season’s Europa League final, after all, that Gian Piero Gasperini described his Atalanta’s win as a victory for “meritocracy”.

“There is still scope for ideas and football doesn’t have to come down to cool, hard money,” he said.

While so much of the modern game seems to be going in the opposite direction, especially with the expanded Champions League, there are figures in Uefa who were conscious of this. These semi-finals show why seemingly innocuous regulations are so important.

Had the original idea for the expanded Champions League been in place, where two positions would have absurdly been awarded based on past performance, clubs like United and Spurs could well have had a safety net. Senior voices like Theo Theodoridis worried this might be going too far. Fan pressure was crucial.

Now, both Spurs and United might be forced into more calculated thought about what next, just like their semi-final opposition.

It is why Bodo can be “an inspiration”, as Sakariassen puts it, for even clubs much bigger than those in Norway. They might also show the way football is going. Much like Liverpool on a different scale in this season’s Premier League, Bodo have made a virtue of “performance culture”. It really is that simple in terms of explanation, if obviously difficult to execute. They began to think about how they could maximise every area of the club.

“They have used their limitations as advantages,” says Jens Haugland, chief executive of the Norwegian league. “We need to be driven by a very strong performance culture, because we can never compete in terms of money. Bodo is a clear example. They have done it for many years and are also able to repeat the performance. You can never buy a performance culture from money, you can never buy an attitude from money, you can never buy a collective from money. You need to work in a very detailed and systematic way for many years.”

Athletic, famously, have an identity you can’t buy with money, either. It is similarly instructive that, when Michel Platini first tried to get Financial Fair Play through 18 years ago, he turned to a prominent Athletic fan. The then Uefa president received crucial legal support from European Union competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia. This wasn’t out of any club bias, but really about what football culture should encourage.

It is impossible not to wonder what some of the Premier League executives might make of being forced into Athletic’s recruitment policy, given that there are now voices at United who want PSR loosened. Bodo pursue a strategy that is similar to Athletic almost by definition, in having mostly Norwegian players, because that’s just the market they’re in. “Their main pitch to me was they could help make me better.” Bjortuft says. “Bodo/Glimt have been really good at picking players who can give everything for the team.”

Praise isn’t universal, of course. There has been some criticism for how Bodo have benefited from that same Uefa prize money mechanism, with Sakariassen admitting “a lot of Norwegian clubs probably see it as a big obstacle”.

Some rivals around the Basque region meanwhile “despise” Athletic for “poaching” their players. Euro 2024 star Nico Williams was taken from nearby rivals Osasuna at 11. On the other side, both Arsenal and Chelsea are looking at him for the summer. Wealthy English clubs want Bodo manager Kjetil Knutsen.

Money does tend to win out. The likelihood is that one of United or Spurs will win to reach the final. If they do, however, there are still considerable lessons to take from their opposition. Neither Bilbao nor Bodo see it that way. They have full belief. It’s the conviction that comes from commitment to a unique identity. They are convinced they can give the best lesson possible.

Inside Joan Didion’s mind: The saddest book you will read all year

Most writers pick up their pens to make sense of the world in their heads, or the chaos around them. Their writing can become many things, bright or black; at heart, it’s always a genuflection to the cause of a creative equilibrium.

The California writer Joan Didion, who died in 2021, committed herself to this calling from an early age with exemplary zeal. Hers became a celebrated literary life, set in and around Hollywood. Yet, in what is possibly the saddest book you will read this year, we have a charcoal portrait of a writer and a mother at the end of her tether. Here, her shyness, which became a kind of paranoia, set her apart; all her life, she’d find it difficult even to speak “every day”.

The media twinned her with hell-raising American writer and artist Eve Babitz, but they were polar opposites. Babitz (Slow Days, Fast Company) revelled in LA as “better than Eden, which was only a garden”; for Didion, La La Land was “hell on Earth”.

In 1964, she married the writer John Gregory Dunne (brother of the celebrated magazine journalist Dominick Dunne). Dunne wrote for Time, and Didion was an editor at Vogue, having started there in 1956 as a prizewinner. According to The New Yorker, theirs was “one of the most collaborative literary marriages in American history”.

She became the queen of witty, uber-cool fiction and journalism, fulfilling what she called “my little secret dream of being a writer”; she worked on movies with her husband, made a fortune from her contribution to A Star is Born, the 1976 Barbra Streisand movie smash, and established herself as a scarily fashionable American literary voice with Democracy, Play It As It Lays, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

It was a measure of her wealth and status that when she and Dunne resolved to curb their extravagant lifestyle, they “decided to address this in Paris, and take the Concorde”.

As in the case of her contemporary Tom Wolfe Jr, Didion’s work and persona became indistinguishable in a way that was typical of American literary culture: her personality and her prose were habitually praised for their “singular intelligence” or “precision and elegance”, clichés of criticism that resurface in the blurb for Notes to John. After the publication of A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Didion seemed to command the topmost heights of America’s Parnassus.

Hollywood can be a cruel place, and self-invention has its limits. Behind Didion’s gilded progress, there were demons. In 1966, after she had suffered a miscarriage, she and Dunne adopted a baby girl whom, in a nod to Mexico’s Yucatan, they christened Quintana Roo. This quest for a more complete family would become a heart-rending personal tragedy out of which, in the end, Didion’s writing would become a lifeline.

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Didion, who disguised the afflictions of her disabling anxiety behind the pose she struck with her notebook, found her relationship with Quintana opening doors into an inferno of alcoholism, depression, guilt, and finally, terror.

In November 1999, after describing, with cool understatement, “a few rough years”, Didion arranged to undergo therapy with the psychiatrist Roger MacKinnon. Part of his treatment would be to explain how and why Didion had grown up “expecting the worst to happen”. In the airless cell of her marriage to a man with “a short fuse”, MacKinnon was a welcome voice of sanity: “You and your husband,” he said, “are going through hell.”

Some of Didion’s early work has been collected in a volume titled We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order to Live. Instinctively, having embarked on “the talking cure”, she wrote about her experience in weekly summaries of each session.

Notes to John, published last month by the Didion Dunne Literary Trust, is a semi-intimate record of her most tormented years with Quintana, a bleak window on her marriage to Dunne (there’s actually no “Dear John” in this manuscript), and – for those who are interested – the literary source for the three great works of Didion’s old age: The Year of Magical Thinking, Blue Nights, and finally, Let Me Tell You What I Mean.

In the last analysis, Notes to John is a disappointing as well as a shattering read. Didion’s estate has chosen to present these “150 unnumbered pages”, discovered in “a small portable file near her desk”, as she left them. There’s no clue as to her posthumous wishes for her most intimate thoughts about her husband, for example. The simple, quite chilly, unrevised text of her notes to Dunne is dated, but otherwise unexplained.

Possibly, this is Didion-esque. She freely admits to MacKinnon that she deals “with everyone at a distance”. With a few exceptions, Didion’s renowned wit is missing in action, but the overall effect – a voyeur’s experience of an analysis – is hypnotic.

Notes To John certainly contains many unresolved psychoanalytical issues. The book, lacking virtually any editorial intervention, leaves its readers to fathom for themselves the mysteries of Didion’s psyche, and her personal tragedy, with no clarifying textual apparatus.

Mostly, the reader must intuit the way in which analyst and analysed go about their work: an hour a week, remorselessly unpicking Didion’s childhood, the failure of her relationships with both her mother and her father, and the catastrophe of her own career as a parent – the distress of Quintana’s suicidal early adulthood.

The whole project has the mercenary air of a smash-and-grab raid by Didion’s executors on her legacy. Nothing new there.

And yet… there’s one unintended consequence of such negligence that’s fascinating. As much as a painfully unvarnished portrait of Joan-as-I-knew-me, this becomes a compelling, even affectionate memoir of shrink and shrinkee, a co-portrait of Roger MacKinnon, whose therapeutic couch Didion occupied from 1999 to 2012 (by which time MacKinnon was 85).

With him, Didion was not her cool self. At their first sessions, MacKinnon had seemed fazed by his celebrity client. “It’s as if you operate on a different level,” he said, before drily correcting himself: “Maybe it’s the entertainment industry.” Yet, on 11 October 2000, when the session began, she writes: “I sat down and immediately began to cry.”

He asked what was “on her mind”. Didion was clearly shocked at her tears. She goes on: “I said I didn’t know. I rarely cried. In fact, I never cried in crises.” It was, she confesses, in some of the most desolate words in this harrowing book, “very difficult to sit down facing someone and talk”.

When MacKinnon died in 2017, The New York Times described this veteran analyst as “one of the most skilled clinicians of his era”, an old-fashioned Freudian pictured in one magazine as “John Wayne in a blue suit”. He was certainly never afraid to shoot from the hip. “You make the mistake of thinking this is about Quintana,” he reproves. “It’s not. It’s about you.”

Sensible advice. It was only after many months of MacKinnon that Didion could resolve to get on with “living her own life”. In the end, it was to this reality that she’d have to return.

Notes to John ends abruptly in 2003, when the saddest part of this sad tale comes to haunt both Didion and her readers, the terrible coda to these “rough years” that only the dauntless candour of her writing could assuage. On 22 December 2003, Didion and Dunne’s daughter was rushed to hospital with pneumonia and was intubated, suffering from septic shock. This time she survived, but Dunne’s sudden death from heart failure, at the age of 71, followed on 30 December like the visitation of an ancient curse.

“Life changes fast,” Didion later wrote, in a much-quoted line. “Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” We will look in vain for such brilliance in this volume, but it unquestionably informs A Year of Magical Thinking. Blue Nights, about Quintana’s death aged 39, not two years later, is also an outcome of these pages.

Didion herself used to debate questions about her legacy with MacKinnon. “What’s it been worth?” she would ask, on the edge of desperation. Notes to John is part of the answer.

‘Notes to John’ by Joan Didion is published by Fourth Estate, £18.99

How online schools can help children form friendships as they learn

When thinking about the best education for your child, it’s naturally not just academic success that comes to mind. A good quality school experience is made up of many parts and one key element is the socialising opportunities that school can provide. Socialisation is crucial for building social skills, growing emotional intelligence and helping children form their own individual identity, as well as giving them an additional incentive to attend a place where they have fun and feel part of a community.

While it might be assumed that the social options are reduced when children attend online school, this is not the case. In fact, there are a number of advantages in terms of the structures, support and diverse social opportunities offered to children who join online schools.

Online schools give students the opportunity to form connections with a much more diverse community of students. The online model allows schools to welcome young people from around the world and this gives pupils a chance to make friends with students from differing backgrounds and cultures. Furthermore, this means they can meet more like-minded individuals and form stronger bonds and more meaningful friendships. This access to such a big and vibrant community also ensures that students can really find ‘their people’ and avoids situations where students are stuck in small circles or forced to engage with classmates that don’t share the same interests or passions.

This is something that Grace, who is now in year 13, has experienced since moving to online school. At her previous school, she was struggling with socialisation and felt that she didn’t really have a self-identity. At an online school, she has found she can be more herself. “A lot of people think that online school is about being alone, but I’ve found that without the physical element, I can express myself better,” Grace explains.  Subsequently, the majority of her closest friends are from her online school and many she has met offline too. “I feel like I’ve met my people,” she says.

Isabella, who is in year 10, has also found that her experience of socialising at an online school has suited her much more than previous bricks and mortar schools. With her father’s job meaning the family moves country every three years, she has always previously struggled forming new friendships at the schools she joins. “I’m always the ‘new’ student, and it’s tough,” she says. After experiences with bullying, she found that online school is an environment she can thrive in. “You don’t have to turn on your camera or use your microphones if you’re not feeling comfortable. I’m not really a ‘social’ person, but I have made some friends here because we have these breakout rooms where we can talk to each other,” she adds.

While young people might not be meeting their fellow students physically every day, online schools put in place extensive measures to ensure that socialising is available for those who want to. This can be seen clearly at King’s InterHigh, the UK’s leading global online school which welcomes children aged 7 to 19 from across the world. Here, students join a warm and welcoming community with a huge range of opportunities for socialising. There’s dozens of clubs and societies for students across all year groups, representing a vast range of interests from chess to technology, sculpture to debate. Throughout the yearly student calendar, there are a number of events, showcases, and competitions of all kinds that provide a chance to socialise in different settings. Some happen internally, like the King’s InterHigh Arts Festival, while others allow students to interact with peers from outside their school when attending events like the International Robotics Competition.

Assemblies bring students together on a weekly basis and give them the chance to celebrate each other’s achievements, hear from their Student Council representatives, and find out what’s coming up at school. Each student is also assigned to one of the school’s eight houses and these smaller, tight-knit communities bring students a sense of belonging and camaraderie. Additionally, inter-house competitions are a fun and friendly way for students to engage and bond.

Although much socialising can come as a result of activities organised by the school, students at King’s InterHigh who are aged over 13 can continue building these relationships in a more informal setting thanks to the in-house, monitored, social media platform. Restricted solely to school students, the platform is safe, secure, and monitored to ensure a positive socialising environment for all those who choose to use it.

Online schools don’t just offer opportunities to socialise online but also offer ample opportunities to cement these connections in offline settings. At King’s InterHigh, there are global meet-ups throughout the year which bring together families allowing both children and parents and guardians to connect in real life. Regular educational school trips, from Geography excursions to science practical exams at other Inspired schools (the group of premium schools of which King’s InterHigh is part of) also allow children to socialise and have fun together in different settings.

Meanwhile, the annual summer camps, themed around a variety of interests and passions, including adventure sports, fashion, football, and tennis, are open to students across all Inspired schools and are held at spectacular Inspired campuses worldwide. Furthermore, the Inspired Global Exchange Programme offers a range of school exchange opportunities, lasting from one week to a full academic year.

Choosing where to educate your children is a big decision for any parent or guardian that involves many factors. However, when it comes to the social benefits, for the right child, online schools offer something truly transformative. To find out more about King’s InterHigh and whether it might be the right learning choice for your family, visit King’s InterHigh

FA to ban transgender women from playing women’s football

Transgender women will be banned from playing women’s football in England from next season, the Football Association has said.

The FA said the move follows the UK Supreme Court’s ruling two weeks ago that a “woman” is defined by biological sex. The change applies to all levels of the game and will be implemented from 1 June.

The FA had updated their transgender inclusion policy prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, allowing transgender women to play in women’s football if they reduced their testosterone levels, but the body have now issued an outright ban.

In updating their policy last month, the FA said there were around 20 transgender women registered in amateur women’s football teams in England. There are no transgender women playing professionally in England.

The FA said in a statement: “We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify, and we are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game.”

The Scottish Football Association (SFA) updated its gender policy earlier this week to similarly ban transgender women from playing women’s football in Scotland.

Transgender women had previously been banned from competing in the female categories of rugby union, athletics, swimming, cycling and triathlon in England.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) banned transgender women from playing at the elite levels least year, with the ECB currently reviewing its policy at the grassroots levels following the Supreme Court ruling.

And on Monday the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association said it would review its transgender inclusion policy, after the transgender women were banned from pool events in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict.

“As the governing body of the national sport, our role is to make football accessible to as many people as possible, operating within the law and international football policy defined by Uefa and Fifa,” the FA added.

“Our current policy, which allows transgender women to participate in the women’s game, was based on this principle and supported by expert legal advice.

“This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling on the 16 Apnil means that we will be changing our policy. Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women’s football in England, and this policy will be implemented from 1 June 2025.”

Paddleboard company owner jailed over deaths was sacked from police

A paddleboard operator jailed for the deaths of four people during a hazardous river excursion was sacked as a police officer for making a fraudulent insurance claim.

Nerys Bethan Lloyd, 39, was sentenced to 10 years and six months at Swansea Crown Court for organising a stand-up paddleboarding tour on the River Cleddau in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, despite “extremely hazardous conditions” and weather warnings in place. The October 2021 tragedy claimed the lives of four people..

The court heard how Lloyd, a former police officer, failed to adequately prepare the group for the treacherous conditions, neglecting to warn them about a dangerous weir along the route with a 1.3-metre drop, or provide instructions on how to navigate it safely. This oversight proved fatal.

Lloyd was previously dismissed from the police force for making a false insurance claim.

Paul O’Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, all died as they were swept over, becoming trapped under the fast-moving water.

After the sentencing, South Wales Police published details of a misconduct hearing which led to her dismissal as an officer in 2022.

It revealed that she claimed £577.55 to cover a car repair that only cost around £16 to £20.

Lloyd admitted her wrongdoing, apologised and said it was an error of judgment and repaid the amount in full, the misconduct hearing was told.

She was interviewed under caution on October 11 2021, two weeks before the paddleboarding incident.

Lloyd attended Ystrad Mynach Police Station on October 19 2021 and accepted a formal caution for the criminal offence of fraud by false representation under the Fraud Act 2006.

Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan said in his decision: “It is entirely unacceptable for police officers, who are responsible for enforcing the law, to break the law themselves.”

After the river incident, Lloyd sought to blame Mr O’Dwyer, who helped act as an instructor on the trip.

Speaking outside the court, Theresa Hall, the mother of Morgan Rogers, said she lost her “best friend” and could “never forgive” Lloyd.

Darren Wheatley, Ms Wheatley’s husband, said the loss of his wife was due to Lloyd and no one else.

Ceri O’Dwyer, who was on the tour, described her husband, Paul, as the “kindest man” but admitted he made a “catastrophic error of judgment”.

Quoting Lloyd, David Elias KC, for the defence, said: “I take full blame (for the incident) that meant four extremely special individuals are not here today.

“The pain for me has been unbearable but the pain for the families unmeasurable.

“There were nine people on the river that day and every one of them is a victim.”

Lloyd, from Aberavon, south Wales, was the owner and sole director of Salty Dog Co Ltd, which organised the tour.

She pleaded guilty to four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act in March, and was sentenced by Mrs Justice Dame Mary Stacey.

Mrs Justice Stacey told the court that the four people who died had been “cut off in their prime, with so much to live for and look forward to”.

She told the defendant: “There was no safety briefing beforehand.

“None of the participants had the right type of leash for their board, and you didn’t have any next of kin details.

“No consent forms were obtained. There had been no mention to the group of a weir on the river and how to deal with it and no discussion of the tidal river conditions whatsoever.”

The judge said there were Met Office weather warnings at that time, as well as a flood alert in place through Natural Resources Wales.