Rabies warning as UK grandmother dies after scratch by dog in Morocco

A British grandmother has died from rabies four months after being scratched “very slightly” by a puppy in Morocco.

Yvonne Ford came into contact with the dog in February but gradually became more unwell over the past two weeks, first developing a headache, before she was left unable to walk, talk, sleep or swallow.

Her family have now appealed to holidaymakers to protect themselves against the disease.

Her daughter, Robyn Thomson, said: “We never thought something like this could happen to someone we love. Please take animal bites seriously, vaccinate your pets, and educate those around you.”

Ms Ford, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, thought nothing of it when she was scratched on a trip to north Africa, Ms Thomson said.

She wrote on Facebook: “Our family is still processing this unimaginable loss, but we are choosing to speak up in the hope of preventing this from happening to others.

“Yvonne Ford, Ron Ford’s wife and our Mum, died of rabies.

“She was scratched very slightly by a puppy in Morocco in February.

“At the time, she did not think any harm would come of it and didn’t think much of it.

“Two weeks ago she became ill, starting with a headache and resulted in her losing her ability to walk, talk, sleep, swallow. Resulting in her passing.”

Ms Thomson wrote that her mother was “the heart of our family — strong, loving and endlessly supportive”.

She added: “No words can fully capture the depth of our loss or the impact she had on all of us. We are heartbroken, but also grateful for every moment we had with her.”

And she warned: “Even a minor scratch or bite from an infected animal—wild or domestic—can transmit the virus. If you are ever bitten or scratched, seek medical attention immediately. Post-exposure prophylaxis vacines can save your life.”

It is understood Ms Ford died in a UK hospital, and government officials said health workers and people who had close contact with her were being assessed as a precautionary measure and being offered vaccinations where necessary.

Ms Thomson said she was sharing information about rabies to raise awareness, especially how it is preventable through prompt medical care after exposure.

Rabies is passed on through bites and scratches from an infected animal, or if an infected animal licks a person’s eyes, nose, mouth or a wound.

It is nearly always fatal, but post-exposure treatment is very effective at preventing disease if given promptly after exposure to the virus, health chiefs say.

Ms Ford is the first person in the UK to die from rabies contracted overseas since 2018. The last victim was bitten by a cat while on holiday in Morocco.

Before that, the last reported case of rabies in the UK was in 2012, when a British grandmother died after being bitten by a dog during a holiday to India.

Katherine Russell, head of emerging infections and zoonoses at the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA), said: “I would like to extend my condolences to this individual’s family.

“If you are bitten, scratched or licked by an animal in a country where rabies is found, you should wash the wound or site of exposure with plenty of soap and water and seek medical advice without delay in order to get post-exposure treatment to prevent rabies.

“There is no risk to the wider public in relation to this case. Human cases of rabies are extremely rare in the UK, and worldwide there are no documented instances of direct human-to-human transmission.”

Over the past 25 years, there have been just seven UK cases of human rabies linked with animal exposures abroad, all of whom died.

Once a person begins showing signs and symptoms, it’s nearly always fatal.

The first symptoms are similar to flu, while later symptoms include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, agitation, anxiety, difficulty swallowing and excessive saliva.

Information on rabies and bites – both animal and human – were among the top of the list for NHS advice being sought at Christmas 2023.

A UKHSA spokeswoman said: “What’s happened is incredibly tragic so we want to make sure people are aware of the risks before they travel.

“There is a vaccine you can have before you go but even if you’ve been vaccinated, if you are bitten or scratched you should still wash the wound and seek medical attention as soon as possible.”

According to the World Health Organisation, rabies is estimated to kill around 59,000 people a year in more than 150 countries, with 95 per cent of cases in Africa and Asia.

However, the UN health agency states that this is likely to be a vast underestimate, and notes that poorer rural populations are particularly affected, while around half of all cases occur in children below the age of 15.

There were an average of 18 reported deaths linked to rabies each year in Morocco over the decade to 2022, WHO data suggests.

Lottery adviser reveals how jackpot winners spend their millions

Those lucky enough to win the jackpot on the lottery will know from the moment their numbers were called; their lives were never the same again.

One ticket holder from Ireland scooped a record-breaking €250m (£208m) in the Euromillions Lottery jackpot on Tuesday, after nobody won the jackpot in the draw last week.

Most of us have planned what we would do in the dream situation of winning millions in the lottery, from exotic holidays to retiring early.

But what actually happens after the adrenaline rush of realising you’ve picked the lucky numbers?

People have spent their money in the past taking their pets on private jets or having a celebrity chef to come and cook Christmas lunch, says Andy Carter Winner’s Adviser at Allwyn, the operator of The National Lottery in the UK.

Mr Carter is the main point of contact for those who have won the big bucks in the lottery in the UK.

He goes visits winners, validates their claim, organises payment and talks them through their next steps to make sure they have the support and advice they need.

But the first piece of advice Mr Carter gives winners is to take some time away, take a holiday and let it sink in. He explained the winnings are paid in one lump sum- meaning it can be very overwhelming.

“It’s a huge amount of money, it’s a big shock for people and they just need to sort of take their time on it,” he told the Independent.

“You went to bed with your life as it was, and you’ve woken up and won £200m. That amount of money is beyond questions of whether or not you at work, or whether you pay the mortgage or not.

“That is about generational wealth,” he added.

“The people who won this money will be able to help out their great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren who haven’t even been born yet.”

In the weeks after winning life-changing amounts of money, Mr Carter makes sure winners have access to legal advice, financial advice and well-being advice.

“We make sure they have access to other lottery winners as well. If you’ve won all this money, the best thing you can do is go and have a cup of tea with someone else who’s won because they’re the people that will truly understand,” he said.

Less than 20 people in the UK have won lottery prizes of more than £100 million, Mr Carter explained.

Financial advice is vital for people who have never had to handle this extortionate amount of money.

Most people spend their lives making financial decisions on paying off the mortgage, retiring or buying a house.

But lottery winners are suddenly burdened with making huge financial decisions.

“Everything you’ve ever known about money has changed,” Mr Carter said.

“People sit around in pubs across the country thinking what they would do if they won. But when you do win it becomes slightly more serious, and people do probably more conservative things than they perhaps thought they would do,” he added.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t advise people to enjoy their winnings, celebrate and tick off bucket list items.

Allwyn partners with a concierge service that can arrange bucket list items for winners. They can arrange meetings with celebrities, grand proposals, holidays and arranging private jets.

“You don’t want to look back on it in years to come, and I didn’t make the most of it,” he said.

How bustling Tehran became a desert of empty streets and shops

This article first appeared in our partner site, Independent Persian

While Iranian officials continue to issue confident claims that they are “fully prepared”, “responding decisively” and “managing the crisis”, the reality on the ground tells a very different story. On day six of Israeli strikes, Iranians are facing streets filled with fear, empty shelves at stores, long queues for bread and fuel, and promises of bomb shelters that do not actually exist. In a country that does not even have functioning air raid sirens, what people are feeling deeply, in every sense, is a slow collapse of both safety and hope. Even if they survive the missiles, the trauma of these days will linger for years.

Empty shops, trembling hands, anxious hearts

Reports from Tehran and other Iranian cities reveal that despite decades of threats against Israel, the Islamic Republic has no real plan in place to protect civilians during wartime. Now, the same population already battered by the regime’s chronic mismanagement and deepening economic hardship is facing the added burden of war, and all the suffering that comes with it.

“There’s visible anxiety on people’s faces. Parents are deeply worried about their children, and those with little financial means look like they’ve aged years in just days,” says a food vendor in northeast Tehran, who has witnessed the panic-buying first hand, as he describes the slow unravelling of daily life.

He says all bottled water and packaged food sold out quickly, and those who could not afford to stock up are now under immense psychological and financial stress.

“War doesn’t just hit people with missiles and drones – it crushes their mental health too,” he told Independent Persian. “God knows how many suffer heart attacks or nervous breakdowns with every explosion, how many are left with lasting psychological trauma. The authorities won’t take responsibility for any of that, but we see it with our own eyes.”

Social media users have also described stores being stripped even of basic snacks like cookies. A middle-aged man from southern Tehran said he visited six shops just to find a couple of chickens. Long-lasting food items are disappearing rapidly, he says, and people are now viscerally experiencing the war.

He remembers long bread lines during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Now, again waiting hours for bread, he says: “This regime has ruined our lives. Everyone is exhausted, anxious, angry and hopeless – and they blame Ali Khamenei.”

Shuttered businesses and a shaken marketplace

As the sky over Tehran rumbles with anxiety and explosions, shopping centres behind glass doors are eerily silent – not out of peace, but despair and distrust. Images from Tehran’s Aladdin Mall on Sunday showed shopkeepers packing up, locking doors and leaving with no expectation of reopening soon.

But this scene is not limited to just one mall. These days, shopping centres from east to west Tehran – and in other cities – look much the same: shuttered shops, empty corridors, and people wandering through without buying, just glancing and moving on. A clothing store owner in a mall near Tehran’s Farjam Street says, “Almost everyone’s closed. The few who remain open do so in the hope of making a daily sale – because if they don’t sell anything today, they won’t have bread tonight.”

In an economy that has long been reduced to day-by-day survival, the idea of savings has become a distant memory for many small business owners. Even before the war, shopkeepers, service workers and tradespeople were already struggling with soaring inflation, economic stagnation and rising taxes. Now, the sound of sirens and the looming shadow of war have delivered the final blow.

The same shopkeeper mentions a neighbour who had to borrow money from several people just to amass 10 million tomans to stock up on groceries – money he knows he may not be able to repay. What makes this crisis even more stark is that these stories are coming from relatively middle-class neighbourhoods, and not from areas that were already trapped in deep, structural poverty even before the war began.

This is more than economic disruption; it’s the gradual collapse of urban family life. People who had barely managed to stay afloat under the weight of chronic economic instability are now forced to shutter their shops, dodge landlords and creditors, and worry about how to feed their families under the looming threat of war.

Widespread fear and anger

Six days into the Israeli strikes, the dominant public feeling is a mix of deep fear and unrelenting anger. The anxiety is heavier than the sound of explosions and can be felt in the streets, by windows and inside homes. And perhaps the darkest truth: there is not a single functioning public shelter to ease that fear.

On Sunday, a government spokesperson announced that metro stations and mosques would remain open 24/7 as shelters. But by Monday morning, images showed Tehran’s metro stations locked, leaving panicked citizens stranded outside. People seeking safety only found more broken promises.

This problem extends beyond Tehran. The public information council in Isfahan also confirmed that metro stations there were not functioning as emergency shelters. Across major cities, people remain exposed to direct threats without being offered a single basic safe space.

A burning public question now is: four decades after enduring devastating missile attacks during the Iran-Iraq war, why does the country still lack substantial civilian protection infrastructure?

Mehdi Chamran, head of Tehran’s City Council, made what sounded like a belated admission: “We still don’t have proper infrastructure to deal with threats. Even during the war, we lacked sufficient experience with shelter drills.” He suggested using metro stations and crisis shelters, but these ideas come too late for a public now living under skies filled with shrapnel.

In the absence of real solutions, scenes from the 1980s are repeating themselves: people are taping their windows with an X shape, hoping to prevent the glass from shattering. It is a symbolic act that reflects a nation’s profound helplessness in the face of a war it did not choose, under a regime that has failed to provide even the most basic sense of safety.

A 60-year-old woman living with her 87-year-old father in a fragile house in Tehran’s Nezamabad neighbourhood said: “Even under normal circumstances, I’m not feeling well. I take anti-anxiety medication. Every time I hear an explosion, I feel like half of my life is slipping away. My father tries to hide his fear so I don’t get scared, but I can see he’s deeply shaken too.”

Their house is old and unsafe. It cracks with any tremor, and a blast could bring it down. For them, the fear of dying is tangled with the fear of having nowhere safe to go. They didn’t choose this war. They have no defence. Yet here they are, caught in a conflict no one prepared them for.

Crippling internet blackouts and psychological toll

Amid the crisis, at a time when people need reliable information, contact with loved ones and access to trustworthy news more than ever, the government has once again turned to a familiar tool used during politically sensitive moments: restricting internet access. Following the Israeli attacks, authorities have limited the public’s connection to the outside world.

Iran’s Ministry of Communications has officially stated that internet access is being restricted due to “special circumstances” – a vague announcement offering neither a clear explanation nor any assurance of improvement. But what people are actually experiencing goes far beyond “restrictions”: extreme slowdowns, constant disconnection of VPNs, disruptions to messaging apps like WhatsApp and, in some cases, total loss of connectivity.

Deputy communications minister Ehsan Chitsaz tried to deflect blame, saying on X: “We wish there was internet access, but it’s out of the ministry’s hands.” Simple as it sounds, the remark amounts to a quiet admission that cutting off public access to the outside world is a decision driven not by executive bodies, but by the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus.

The effects go far beyond inconvenience. One Iranian living abroad said: “I heard there was a strike near my parents’ home. I sent a message in our family group, but it wouldn’t go through. I didn’t get a reply for three hours – I was frantic.” This experience is shared by thousands inside and outside the country; trapped in silence, unable to reach or be reached.

In the absence of a free flow of information, the regime’s official narrative, once again, becomes the only one available. In the absence of independent media, the state broadcaster IRIB pushes messages of a “crushing response to Israel”, while the public, cut off from reliable news sources, is left trapped between fear, uncertainty and one-sided narratives. This deliberate restriction is not only a blatant violation of the right to communication and access to information – it’s also a tool for shaping public opinion in the midst of crisis.

Restrictions everywhere – from fuel to cash

What’s unfolding in Iran now feels like a slow-motion collapse, one that only the people seem to fully perceive. Long queues at petrol stations are among the most common images. People wait in the heat for hours, only to be allowed 15 litres of fuel – no more.

A 32-year-old from southeast Tehran, who now drives for Snapp (Iran’s Uber), said: “I had to close my shop because of high prices and blackouts. Now I’ve got rent, a newborn baby, and no fuel – or even formula.” Frustration and anger weighed down his voice. He, like many others, spends three hours queuing for fuel, only to make a few short trips before needing more.

But the crisis goes beyond transportation. Cash itself is becoming scarce. Many ATMs are down, either due to banking system failures or because they have simply run out of cash. People spend hours going from one machine to another just to withdraw a few hundred thousand tomans – cash that could be vital in an emergency, whether to buy bread and medicine or make a possible escape from the city.

While some bank branches remain open, many are running low on cash. In an atmosphere of growing panic, the lack of fuel, infant formula and cash has left many feeling besieged – not by a foreign power, but by their own government’s chronic failure to anticipate crises and provide even the most basic needs for its citizens.

A capital emptied by fear

Tehran is no longer its usual bustling self. The streets are quieter – but this silence isn’t peace. It’s a survival strategy. Many residents of the capital and other major cities are fleeing. Those who have left are now stuck for hours in traffic on highways out of Tehran.

Footage from Sunday showed major exits clogged with anxious families, driving without direction or destination – just desperate for safety. Yet the question remains: where is safe? Those left behind in their homes ask the same thing. They don’t have a place to go, nor a vehicle, nor the confidence that leaving will even help.

At Iran’s land borders, especially Bazargan, new scenes are unfolding: long lines of people trying to escape to Turkey or neighbouring countries. With flights suspended, people are pinning their hopes on overland routes. But capacity is limited. Those without cars are left completely stranded in the absence of an emergency transport system or even an alternative plan.

In the absence of state coordination, people have taken matters into their own hands, creating grassroots Telegram groups where those with cars offer their spare seats to others in need of a ride. These improvised efforts reveal that, in the regime’s vacuum, social solidarity remains the sole functioning aspect.

At the same time, Iranian expats, especially in Turkey and the UAE, have begun offering housing to fellow citizens – people stranded by flight cancellations or seeking temporary refuge.

A wartime reality

What Iranians are now living through is unmistakably a state of war, though the regime avoids using the term. There’s no clear end in sight, and fear, helplessness, and distrust have taken hold. Even if they survive the bombs, the psychological scars of this war will last for years. These are people already crushed by poverty, inflation, censorship and repression.

This war, imposed on the Iranian people, has not only damaged the physical fabric of cities but also struck at the psyche of an entire nation. Psychologists call it “collective trauma”: a wound not on the body, but on the soul of a people. And if left unacknowledged, it can fester into hatred, distrust and social collapse.

The consequences of this crisis extend far beyond psychological trauma. Damaged small businesses, widespread closures, a new wave of unemployment, shortages of essential goods, disruptions in banking and internet services, interrupted education and capital flight – all mark the beginning of a path leading to a deeper, long-term crisis.

In the end, whether this war continues or comes to a halt, for the people of Iran it is not just a military conflict, it is an experience of total abandonment. And that sense of abandonment will not end when the bombs stop falling. What is left is a generation that no longer fears, but no longer hopes, either. A generation with no voice, no shelter and no clear future.

Reviewed by Mohadese Tahery and Celine Assaf

HS2 branded an ‘appalling mess’ as government confirms major delay

Sir Keir Starmer has delayed the opening of HS2 as costs soar and a damning report exposes the “litany of failure” behind the rail line.

The prime minister’s transport secretary described the project as an “appalling mess” on Wednesday and confirmed the remaining London to Birmingham stretch of the high speed rail project will be delayed beyond its target opening date of 2033. A source told The Independent “the original target can’t be hit”.

Heidi Alexander laid out how the Tories saw the cost of HS2 soar by £37bn between its approval in 2012 and last year’s general election.

And she vowed that those who may have taken advantage of taxpayers by charging inflated prices will face consequences for doing so.

Ms Alexander told the Commons she is drawing a “line in the sand” over the beleaguered rail project, as the government attempts to reset how major infrastructure is delivered.

Ministers are hoping to learn from the mistakes of HS2 so that they do a better job when it comes to projects like Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Lower Thames Crossing.

“When it comes to HS2, in some ways, we’re a bit of a laughing stock around the world in terms of how we handle infrastructure. As a government, we’re absolutely determined to turn that around,” housing minister Matthew Pennycook said on Wednesday.

And, speaking in the Commons, Ms Alexander said: “Today I’m drawing a line in the sand, calling time on years of mismanagement, flawed reporting and ineffective oversight.

“It means this Government will get the job done between Birmingham and London. We won’t reinstate cancelled sections we can’t afford, but we will do the hard but necessary work to rebuild public trust – and we’ve not wasted any time.”

Shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon admitted the Conservative Party made mistakes with its handling of HS2.

Mr Bacon said: “I believe there is a broad consensus in this House today on the central point which is that mistakes were made in the delivery of HS2.

“As Ms Alexander has noted, costs more than doubled, the project has been repeatedly delayed, and the pandemic completely changed travel patterns, undercutting the assumptions that guided the original plans and caused construction costs to rise sharply across the world.”

Referring to the mistakes, Mr Bacon added: ” As a country we must learn from those mistakes and we must not repeat them.”

The result of two reviews into HS2 were announced alongside the Transport Secretary’s statement.

The first was an interim report by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2, who was appointed late last year.

He assessed the construction of the project’s first phase from London to Birmingham.

A second, wider review into the governance and accountability of HS2, led by James Stewart, also reported back.

It set out what has gone wrong with HS2, and what ministers can learn for future infrastructure projects.

It came as Tony Berkeley branded HS2 “chaos” and insisted it should be stopped.

The Labour peer, who served as deputy chairman of a government review into HS2, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s chaos, and we haven’t been told anything about it.

“Rishi Sunak, after all, cancelled it 18 months ago. That was the previous government but everybody in HS2 seems to have ignored it and the government’s ignored it by continuing to pour money down it when they should have stopped 18 months ago and they should still stop today.

“They’ve wasted billions already.

“I think that the first thing to do is to stop digging when you don’t know what you’re doing and where it’s going to end up, and I would put HS2 into administration. Let the administrators sort it out and then take a clear, simple look at what they want to achieve and get it done in a much more cost effective way.”

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told the Commons on Wednesday that she is drawing a “line in the sand” over the beleaguered rail project.

As she addressed MPs, the transport secretary touched on allegations of fraud by contractors to HS2 which have emerged recently.

Earlier this week, it emerged HS2 Ltd reported a sub-contractor working on the rail line to HMRC following an internal probe.

During the statement, Ms Alexander also announced a new chair of HS2.

The current chair, Sir Jon Thompson, previously announced he would stand down in the spring of this year.

His replacement will be Mike Brown, Ms Alexander confirmed.

Mr Brown is the former commissioner for Transport for London, who helped to oversee the deliver of Crossrail, the transport project which became London’s Elizabeth Line.

HS2 was originally due to run between London and Birmingham, then onto Manchester and Leeds, but the second phase of project was scrapped by Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives due to spiralling costs, a decision first revealed by The Independent in September 2023.

Concerns about the costs of the stunted project have persisted, with £100 million spent on a bat tunnel aimed at mitigating the railway’s environmental impact singled out by Sir Keir for criticism.

How the biggest online troll was unmasked as a man posing as a woman

It was a moment cemented in pop culture legend when, in October 2019, Coleen Rooney uttered the immortal line, “It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s account”. The seismic tweet, heard around the world, was the culmination of Rooney’s internet sleuthing to deduce who had been trying to destroy her reputation, with the finger pointed firmly at her fellow footballer’s wife. It wasn’t, however, the only sleuthing scandal to cause a stir that year. A few weeks later, in November 2019, a group of mumfluencers, aka mummy bloggers, exposed a shocking story that laid bare a very toxic underbelly of influencer culture.

Blogger and midwife Clemmie Hooper, known on social media as “Mother of Daughters”, who at the time had 670,000 followers on Instagram, was revealed to have been using the message board forum Tattle Life to anonymously pull apart other online influencers – even her own husband Simon, aka Father of Daughters, whom she referred to as a “class-A twat”.

Using the pseudonym “Alice in Wanderlust”, she anonymously accused fellow content creator Candice Brathwaite, with whom she had recently recorded a podcast, of being “aggressive” and of using her “race as a weapon”. After being exposed, Hooper deleted her Instagram account and never returned.

That was the first time most of us had heard of Tattle Life, a site that existed simply to give internet trolls a platform to slag off, gossip about and even issue death threats to (mostly female) influencers and celebrities. It now attracts an astonishing 12 million visitors a month, and has caused untold misery to those who find themselves subject to its attacks, which often extend to victims’ families and friends, too.

But four years ago, two of its victims said enough is enough, and started their hunt to unmask the founder of Tattle Life.

Last week, Irish couple Neil and Donna Sands won £300,000 in libel damages after taking Tattle Life to court – a decision that led to a two-year legal battle that has cost them hundreds of thousands of pounds. The couple sued the site for defamation and harassment, claiming they were relentlessly targeted with nasty, abusive comments on vicious threads that filled 45 pages on the site.

They told the court of the barrage of false, damaging claims and personal attacks they had been subjected to, which included harassment and doxxing (exposing their home address). One troll even wrote that they were “watching you in real life”, implying that they were stalking the couple.

Donna described waking “every morning” and wondering, “What have they said in the last seven hours?” Her body would physically shake on seeing updates, and she struggled with confidence.

But now, after two years of lengthy and expensive battles, Neil and Donna have walked away with £150,000 each, plus legal costs, in a case they said was about standing up to online “hate speech”.

Until this moment, nobody had had any information on who ran the site, apart from a name, Helen McDougal, which was known to be a pseudonym. While no one had ever met her, she was often referred to on Tattle only as “Helen”, with users often claiming she had multiple accounts; she would shadow-ban her critics and dole out uneven moderation.

However, what people didn’t realise was that Helen was in fact a 41-year-old man, Sebastian Bond, who was exposed by a judge at Belfast’s High Court after reporting restrictions were lifted.

And Helen McDougal wasn’t his only pseudonym: he also used Bastian Durward, under which he operated a vegan cooking brand called Nest and Glow, which runs an Instagram account with around 135,000 followers (though it’s been inactive since 2020).

Bond had also set up multiple companies, including Yuzu Zest Ltd in the UK and Kumquat Tree Ltd in Hong Kong, through which he’s believed to have managed Tattle Life and channelled advertising revenue. The court froze more than £1m in assets tied to these companies alongside the £300k damages award. Reports have suggested that Bond, who has been dubbed “King of the Trolls”, has now fled to Asia; he is thought to be in Hong Kong. He has not commented on the legal drama.

That a man was behind a platform that encouraged (and profited from) such blatant hatred towards women and their children made it all the more outrageous, with one mumfluencer, who asked not to be named, saying, “The misogyny that Tattle has unleashed on innocent women is shocking. Women have had their addresses leaked, their homes visited and their children threatened. It’s one thing not to like an online influencer, but it’s another to wish illness or even death on them. This has to mark a turning point; it’s simply gone too far.”

Outside the court last week, Neil Sands said the case had been undertaken on behalf of others who have suffered serious personal and professional harm through anonymous online attacks – and there are certainly a lot of them.

Tattle Life has 374,000 current members, and the site has played host to more than 22 million messages on threads relating to specific – mostly female and mostly British – influencers and celebrities. It’s so full of overwhelmingly nasty content that it has been referred to as “the most hate-filled corner of the web”.

A 2023 report by Collabstr found that 79 per cent of influencers are female, and so the abuse and trolling of influencers is a problem that predominantly affects women. The thread titles are aimed at their subjects’ parenting choices, looks, and marriages, such as “We don’t care that you’re pregnant, hun” and “Ratty fringe, gifted cringe”.

Beauty writer Sali Hughes, who has been the subject of malicious threads for years, described the site as a place where users “screengrabbed every post, every article, scuttling back to their sewer to mock and belittle me”.

In 2020, Hughes took part in a Radio 4 documentary during which she highlighted how the site’s content veered into harassment, sparking a petition demanding its closure.

But why would anyone take the time to create a false identity to attack people they didn’t know in the first place? One Tattle reader, who stressed that she didn’t actively post herself, and asked to remain anonymous, explained that it felt “cathartic” to read negative takes on influencers who publicly receive such “outpourings of adoration”.

“These people are told every day how wonderful they are, how great they look, how perfect their homes are, and are earning 10 times what we do and getting endless freebies,” she said. “Influencers can be out of touch and really annoying. Why shouldn’t people share how that makes them feel?”

The argument that influencers, like celebrities, put their lives out there for consumption, meaning they are fair game, is a well-trodden one. But what happens when it crosses the line, pushing couples like Neil and Donna Sands to breaking point? What about when their children are discussed; when posters report seeing their subject in a doctor’s office and start to speculate about their health, or a countdown is set to when their marriage might end? All these things have been experienced by victims of the site.

Several creators, including Irish-born Eimear Varian Barry, have shared devastating Tattle experiences. Barry revealed that one thread had even contained the Rightmove link when her house was for sale, and that users had threatened to “pay her a visit”.

Another found that a thread had identified her children’s school. Influencer Vickaboox, real name Victoria Wright, was horrified to read malicious posts about her mother’s cancer, with one claiming that her boyfriend had left her as a result of it.

Abuse isn’t just happening on anonymous platforms, but in plain sight in the comment sections on social media. Last week in Australia, 27-year-old content creator Indy Clinton, who shares her life as a mum of three with more than 2 million followers on TikTok, revealed that she had taken action against anonymous online trolls by hiring a private investigator to unmask those who had been posting hateful comments about her.

She, too, wants the trolls to be held accountable, and has said she is planning to take legal action.

Psychologist Tara Quinn-Cirillo says that the very fact that sites like Tattle allow users to be anonymous makes them feel removed from the “subject” they are talking about, which leads to more intense and abusive commentary.

She explains: “If we feel disconnected, we can forget that there is a person with thoughts and feelings behind the public image. It is also easy for people to then follow suit and collectively snowball on comments and abuse.”

Of course, some may think that influencers can just ignore the trolls, or not read what is being written about them. But it’s not always so easy. Sometimes others will email or screenshot what is being said and send it to someone out of “concern”. If someone is making specific threats, others may assume that a person would want to know if they could potentially be in danger.

Stefan Michalak and his wife Hannah, who have two children, have been sharing their family life via their Instagram accounts and their YouTube channel for more than 10 years. They have had thousands of Tattle posts devoted to them.

“The handful of times I’ve looked [at Tattle] over the years, it felt like wading into something dangerously radioactive. It sticks with you,” says Stefan. He adds, “It would be great to see these people come out of the shadows and put their faces and names to their opinions, but I’m sure that won’t happen.”

Last week’s ruling has, however, changed things for Tattle Life and its users. Comments and threads are said to be in the process of being locked or deleted, and panicked users are deleting their accounts in fear that their own identities could be exposed and their employers notified.

Tackling online hate is a mammoth task, but with their court case, Neil and Donna Sands have taken some big steps towards it. As one influencer said yesterday, “It shouldn’t take the threat of being exposed to stop people being hateful to strangers on the internet. But if it stops even a few of them, fighting back will become worth it.”

What’s the secret to a truly stress-free holiday?

High-end cruising has entered a new era. Today’s luxury travellers aren’t looking for big flashy experiences. They want slow-paced, intimate travel and authentic cultural immersion. More than anything else, they’re looking for ease: that feeling of being genuinely cared for, safe in the knowledge that they’re experiencing the best of the best.

That means excellent quality food and drink, of course – it’s got to be restaurant standard and cater to all tastes – but also onboard enrichment experiences of the highest calibre. The great beauty of cruising has always been that not a second is wasted. Savvy travellers get to explore a rich and rewarding variety of exotic, off-the-beaten track locations, but instead of spending half their holiday stuck in motorway traffic, they’re honing their swing in the golf net, or sipping on a cocktail on the upper deck as they travel from destination to destination.

When they’re onshore they want genuinely immersive experiences that get them under the hood of a destination: think cellar tours of local vineyards or speedboat cruises to hidden beaches. Done right, a high-end all-inclusive cruise is the ideal form of slow travel, offering a perfect balance of adventure and indulgence, proper pampering and a thrilling sense of discovery.

The world’s most luxurious fleet

First among equals when it comes to the new era of luxury cruising is Regent Seven Seas Cruises, which offers more than 170 different itineraries visiting over 550 ports of call worldwide. Each of the six ships in their fleet is opulently appointed with beautifully designed communal areas and a huge array of amenities, but none of them has a capacity of more than 746 guests, ensuring space and freedom for all aboard.

The all-suite accommodation means that the private spaces are similarly roomy, each having a private balcony and marble bathroom. And service is always impeccable with a crew-to-guest ratio that’s nearly one-to-one, meaning that the team can always go that mile extra for all travellers.

Across the ships, the food is uniformly excellent. As well as Regent’s signature Compass Rose restaurant, with its daily changing menu of bistro classics like lobster bisque and New Zealand lamb chops, the different ships also feature a range of speciality dining venues. These include Prime 7, a New York-style steakhouse, Pacific Rim with its pan-Asian menu (be sure to try the miso black cod), and fine-dining destination, Chartreuse, where the chefs turn out sophisticated plates of upscale French cooking like Beef Tenderloin Rossini and Seared Foie Gras.

With a number of long cruises on their roster, Regent has made sure that each of its ships is akin to an ultra-luxury, boutique floating hotel with an incredible variety of things to do during the day and top-level entertainment at night. There are courts for paddle tennis and bocce, and the onboard spa offers a range of exclusive bespoke treatments. The ships host talks by experts in their field and cooking lessons are also available on some of the ships at the culinary arts kitchens where visiting chefs guide guests in how to make wow-factor dishes that relate to the ports of call. In the evening, the Constellation Theatre hosts lavishly staged productions from a team of Broadway choreographers and artists.

Destinations that match the onboard luxury

Of course, none of this onboard luxury would mean much if the destinations weren’t up to scratch, but Regent’s superbly curated itineraries are up there with the very best. Its week-long trips include culture-packed European tours like Glories of Iberia which sails from Barcelona to Lisbon, and thrilling frontier explorations such as the Great Alaskan Adventure from Whittier to Vancouver.

Longer trips include four-week Legendary Journeys from Athens to Montreal, and fully immersive explorations of the Arctic. Long or short, these itineraries are all underpinned by a commitment to taking guests right to the heart of a destination with the kind of bespoke onshore activities and expert-led insights that mean on a Regent Seven Seas Cruises voyage, adventure is guaranteed.

Visit Regent Seven Seas Cruises now to uncover the true meaning of luxury and start booking your ultimate stress-free getaway

Who has hardest start? Every Premier League club’s first five fixtures

The Premier League fixtures have been released for the new 2025/26 season and already fans will be debating who has been given a helping hand by the fixture computer and who has been given the short straw.

Yes, they all play each other twice, but when you want your club to get off to a flying start, a friendly looking fixture list certainly helps.

Arsenal can certainly lay claim to the most difficult start, with away trips to Manchester United and Liverpool in their first five fixtures, amid home ties against newly promoted Leeds, last season’s revelation Nottingham Forest and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.

But perhaps Man United’s is even tougher, with top-four finishers Arsenal, City and Chelsea all in their first five games, alongside an away trip to Fulham and a home game against newcomers Burnley.

Fulham themselves have a challenging opening five, with testing trips to Brighton, Chelsea and Brentford alongside the visits of Man United and Leeds.

Meanwhile Chelsea look to have landed a soft opening, playing Crystal Palace, Fulham and Man United at home, with trips to West Ham and Brentford away.

Sunderland’s opening isn’t bad either, with home games against West Ham, Brentford and Villa, mixed in with away trips to Burnley and Palace.

And Aston Villa might hope for a fast start hosting Newcastle, Palace and Everton with away trips to Brentford and Sunderland.

Here is every Premier League club’s first five games of the 2025/26 season:

Bournemouth

Arsenal

Aston Villa

Brighton

Brentford

Burnley

Chelsea

Crystal Palace

Everton

Fulham

Leeds United

Liverpool

Manchester City

Manchester United

Newcastle United

Nottingham Forest

Sunderland

Tottenham Hotspur

West Ham United

Wolverhampton Wanderers

Watch every Fifa Club World Cup game free on DAZN. Sign up here now.

The new abortion law reforms are welcome – but don’t go far enough

Tuesday’s vote to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales was historic. For the first time, parliament made it clear: no woman should face prison for ending a pregnancy.

Vulnerable women who seek to end late-term pregnancies deserve compassion and support, not prosecution. This is a moment to call for lasting, meaningful reform because the fight for reproductive freedom is far from over.

Under laws dating back to 1861, abortion has been treated not as healthcare, but as a crime. The law that still governed abortion – the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 – predates the lightbulb. It was written at a time when women couldn’t vote, own property, or sit in parliament, and yet anyone found guilty of an offence under the act could face life imprisonment.

Even the 1967 Abortion Act didn’t change the threat of criminalisation, but simply carved out narrow exceptions such as if abortion was necessary to prevent grave, permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman. Even now, a woman must get the approval of two doctors to access an abortion. No other medical procedure has been subject to statute or carries the threat of criminal prosecution. That’s state control.

In recent years, women have been investigated, prosecuted, and even jailed, sometimes for having late-term miscarriages. I represented a woman accused of murder in the most tragic of circumstances; fortunately, she was eventually cleared. These cases are traumatising and unjust. The criminalisation of abortion doesn’t protect women, it punishes them. In my view, the experts, healthcare providers, must regulate abortion just like any other medical procedure.

Tuesday’s vote says: enough. But words must now become action. Every in-progress prosecution must be dropped. Every woman convicted under these laws must be pardoned. Their criminal records must be expunged. They should never have been criminalised in the first place.

There’s also no excuse for leaving the 1861 and 1967 acts on the statute books. They must be repealed. They don’t belong in a modern legal system. They belong in a museum, consigned to history books.

Some argue that criminal law is needed to stop abusive men from coercing women into abortions. That insidious form of reproductive control must be tackled. But we already have laws on coercive control, and if required, new legislation could be introduced to address a lacuna in the law. Using Victorian abortion laws to address modern-day abuse does not work. The law has no democratic authority when women were regarded as second-class citizens.

We must go further. Abortion must be enshrined in law as a human right. One in three women will have an abortion in her lifetime. Yet access remains patchy and precarious. Women still travel hundreds of miles for care. Clinics face harassment. Buffer zones are under threat. Doctors fear prosecution. This is not how a fair, compassionate country treats healthcare.

What we need now is a comprehensive abortion law fit for the 21st century, one that fully decriminalises abortion; puts decision-making in the hands of women and healthcare professionals, not politicians; safeguards access to telemedicine; and invests in local, timely, and free services for all who need them.

Healthcare decisions should be made in consultation rooms, not courtrooms. Abortion is not a crime. It’s healthcare.

Tuesday’s vote was urgent and overdue. But if we stop here, we leave millions of women at risk. Now is the time for full reform, not half measures. The question is not whether this goes too far; it’s whether we’re brave enough to go far enough.

This piece was co-authored with Dr Jonathan Lord, medical director at MSI Reproductive Choices