Hitler had genetic sexual disorder, new DNA analysis reveals

Adolf Hitler had a hidden genetic disorder that would have hindered the development of his sexual organs, new analysis of his DNA has uncovered.

The Nazi dictator had Kallmann syndrome, impacting the normal progression of puberty and suggesting that it seems likely he would have struggled to form sexual relationships.

The findings are set to be revealed in the Channel 4 documentary Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator, which also debunks the myths Hitler had Jewish ancestry and provides evidence that he probably had one or more neurodiverse or mental health conditions.

Scientists were able to build the DNA profile from a sample of blood-stained cloth that a US Army colonel had cut from the sofa where Hitler took his own life in 1945.

While the research and its outcomes are likely to provoke controversy, the lead geneticist said that while she was conflicted about taking on the project, she wanted to ensure it was done properly.

Professor Turi King, who identified the remains of Richard III, said: “I agonised over it. But it will be done at some point and we wanted to make sure it’s done in an extremely measured and rigorous fashion. Also, to not do it puts him on some sort of pedestal.”

She added: “If he was to look at his own genetic results, he would have almost certainly have sent himself to the gas chambers.”

Stories from the First World War suggest that Hitler had been bullied over the size of his genitalia, with his genetic condition meaning he had a one in ten chance of having a micropenis.

A 1923 medical examination, which was uncovered in 2015, showed that Hitler did have an undescended testicle, giving surprising credence to the derogatory wartime song about him.

Alex J Kay, a historian at the University of Potsdam, who specialises in Nazi Germany told the documentary that this could help explain his “highly unusual and almost complete devotion to politics in his life”.

He said: “Other senior Nazis had wives, children, even extramarital affairs. Hitler is the one person among the whole Nazi leadership who doesn’t. Therefore, I think that only under Hitler could the Nazi movement have come to power.”

The DNA findings have also dispelled long-held rumours that Hitler had Jewish ancestry, and that he was illegitimately descended from a Jewish grandfather.

However, the possibility of having one of a number of neurodiverse and mental health conditions was not ruled out, with some of his genes overlapping between conditions.

It was found that Hitler was in the top percentile in terms of his chances of having autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but it is unclear which of these symptoms he may have possessed.

Dr Alex Tsompanidis, an autism researcher at the University of Cambridge, said: “I think it’s fair to say that his biology didn’t help. I don’t think any clinical term applies here. We can’t know, we can’t diagnose. The cognitive process is likely to have been affected, but I use his behaviour as much as genetics when I say that.”

However, the group of researchers are keen to ensure the findings are not used to stigmatise those with the same conditions that are indicated in the DNA.

“Behaviour is never 100 per cent genetic,” psychologist Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen said. “Associating Hitler’s extreme cruelty with people with these diagnoses risks stigmatising them, especially when the vast majority of people with these diagnoses are neither violent nor cruel, and many are the opposite.”

BBC ‘prepared to apologise to Trump’ after $1bn legal threat

The BBC is prepared to formally apologise to Donald Trump after he threatened to sue the corporation for £1bn after they edited one of his speeches.

Multiple reports have said that the broadcaster’s legal team have been drawing up its response to the complaint over a Panorama episode, but that senior figures are mindful to defend the BBC’s journalism after being branded as “fake news” by the U.S. President.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer has said the BBC must get their “house in order” when mistakes are made, the deadline for the legal threat looms.

The US president has said he has an “obligation” to sue the BBC over the way his “beautiful speech” on 6 January 2021 was edited.

Speaking for the first time since his lawyers took the unprecedented step of threatening to sue the corporation for $1bn, he told Fox News: “They actually changed my January 6 speech, which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech, and they made it sound radical.”

He claimed the BBC “defrauded the public”, adding: “I think I have an obligation to [sue them], you can’t allow people to do that.”

Four-word message the BBC should send Trump about his $1bn lawsuit

There’s one way the BBC could retrieve some dignity from the smoking rubble of the past week. They should send Donald Trump a four-word reply to his blustering threat to sue them in Florida $1bn in damages: “See you in court.”

There’s barely a notable news organisation in the US that Trump hasn’t yet sued. ABC News and CBS News have demonstrated the resolve of a jellyfish in stumping up millions to settle lawsuits that were, in the view of most lawyers, perfectly defensible.

That leaves a $10bn claim against The Wall Street Journal for revealing a lewd scribble he allegedly penned to Jeffrey Epstein and a $15bn suit against The New York Times for engaging “in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole.” He’s even suing the Pulitzer Prize Committee for giving the NYT a gong.

The BBC should shame their American broadcasters for their spineless capitulation by refusing to be bullied into abject apologies or donations to Trump’s presidential library. They made an error. They have (belatedly) corrected it. They’ve expressed regret. Now move on.

If Trump had dared to sue in an English court (he can’t because he’s left it too late), the BBC could have replied with the coded response occasionally used by Private Eye: “We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v Pressdram.”

This refers to a 1970s libel threat from a businessman named Arkell. The magazine considered the claim so preposterous that they replied: “Dear Sir, Fuck off, YoursPrivate Eye.”

But the joke is a little too esoteric for Trump and his lawyers, so “See you in court” would do just as well.

Trump’s first problem is that, according to the BBC, Panorama is not actually available in the US and neither is iPlayer – unless you’re using a VPN in a naughty way, which you might not want to ventilate in a court of law. So what’s the damage?

Then there’s the problem that the US media is protected from liability when reporting on public figures by the landmark 1964 case of NYT v Sullivan. In that case, a remarkable judge, Justice William J Brennan, essentially gave American journalists the right to be wrong, so long as erroneous statements about public figures are honestly made.

Brennan referred to “the pall of fear and timidity” that the routine prospect of legal actions would have on journalists. He ruled: “Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open and . . . it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

There are no higher public officials than the president, so unless Trump could demonstrate that a BBC editor deliberately set out to damage him by splicing together two different parts of a speech, it’s difficult to see how he could succeed.

Sullivan is under more ideological and rhetorical pressure than it has been in decades, and at least two justices want to revisit it, but the Supreme Court has not yet taken any concrete step to weaken it. The governing rule remains precisely what it has been since 1964.

Was the film misleading? In the narrow sense of a bad edit, yes. That was unprofessional and wrong. But was it materially misleading in the sense of overstating Trump’s role in urging on the crowd as they headed to Capitol Hill on January 6? Several congressional and legal authorities could be cited by the BBC in its defence.

The veteran BBC Panorama reporter, John Ware, has been using the archives of The Daily Telegraph – the paper which has accused the BBC of “materially misleading” editing – to demonstrate a degree of hypocrisy.

He quotes The Telegraph’s own chief reporter, Robert Mendick, on 7 January 2021: “Trump threw on the whole, messy heap a burning match. And throughout the day he kept throwing on more. A clenched fist, and a call for action.”

Ware moves onto the former prime minister as quoted in The Telegraph on 8 January: “Boris Johnson has ‘unreservedly condemned’ Donald Trump for encouraging protesters [his emphasis] who stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC. The Prime Minister said the US president had been ‘completely wrong’ to cast doubt on the outcome of the election and to encourage the ‘disgraceful’ behaviour that resulted in four deaths…”

Then Ware quotes The Telegraph’s own columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on 8 January: “The putsch has failed….the desecration of Capitol Hill by Trump mobs – on explicit incitement by the president [his emphasis] – speaks for itself.”

For good measure, he adds The Telegraph’s own Ben Riley-Smith on 13 January, referring to Trump’s “incendiary speech to supporters” prior to the “mob that stormed the US Capitol last week”.

It would be amusing for the BBC to use The Telegraph’s own reporting to bolster the case that Trump did, indeed, bear significant responsibility for the carnage that followed his speech. Indeed, numerous rioters subsequently testified that they had been motivated by Trump’s words.

All in all, Trump doesn’t have much of a case, and if BBC chair Samir Shah has any sense, he’ll announce that not a penny of licence fee payers’ money will go to furnishing the Donald J Trump Library.

Show the Americans what a British backbone is made of! Show weaselly US broadcasters how it’s done! Even Nigel Farage should cheer that on.

Russian troops exploit bad weather to make key gains in Ukraine

Ukrainian forces have pulled back from several positions in the southern Zaporizhzhia region amid heavy fighting and adverse weather.

Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for Ukraine‘s Southern Defense Forces, told public broadcaster Suspilne that troops had “completely withdrawn” from the villages of Uspenivka and Novomykolaivka.

“Very fierce fighting continues for Yablukove and several other locations,” he said. “The defensive operation is ongoing, and the contact line remains dynamic.”

Russia is taking advantage of the weather to advance in small groups, moving on foot or motorcycles, with the adverse weather preventing Ukrainian forces from deploying drones against them.

It comes as Ukraine’s government suspended its justice minister on Wednesday, amid an investigation into corruption in the energy sector.

Prime minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said the decision to suspend German Galushchenko was taken after an “extraordinary session of the government”.

Galushchenko, who previously served as energy minister, was the subject of investigative actions, his ministry said on Tuesday, without specifying whether this was in relation to the energy corruption case.

Scientists unveil new anti-malaria drug with ‘very high cure rate’

A new anti-malaria drug with a cure rate of over 97 per cent has been developed by scientists.

The drug is the first to be created in 25 years and was made in an attempt to eliminate resistance to existing treatments.

Experts said that they were “very excited” by the findings, with the treatment showing a cure rate of 99.2 per cent in some assessments.

“This has a potential to not just treat the disease, but also to work against the resistant parasites, [and] additionally, block the transmission of the disease,” said Dr Sujata Vaidyanathan, head of global health development at Novartis, which created the new drug.

The treatment, known as GanLum, works by disrupting the internal protein transport system in the malaria parasite – which is essential for the parasite to survive in the blood.

Experts said that they have been sounding the alert about resistance to anti-malaria treatments and the GanLum will help stem the concern.

Dr Vaidyanathan went on: “We are starting to see emergence of resistance.

“In order to address this, we set about to create a totally new kind of compound.

“There has not been major innovation in the treatment of malaria in the past 25 years, because the ACT’s (artemisinin-based combination therapies) have worked so well.

“But now, resulting in the resistance that is arising, we have set up to develop a completely new treatment for malaria.”

She added: “In addition to treating malaria, [it] has the potential to kill the resistant parasites.

“The way the drug works is by disrupting the parasite’s internal protein transport system and which then is essential for these parasites to survive inside the red blood cells.

“So this way, it’s able to address the disease, as well as able to work across the different parasite spectrum.”

Scientists have now reported back on their large clinical trial assessing the treatment in the real world, presenting their findings to the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene annual meeting in Toronto.

The trial ran across 34 sites in 12 countries in Sub Saharan Africa involving 1,700 adults and children who weighed more than 10kg.

“It had a very high cure rate,” Dr Vaidyanathan said.

Commenting on the findings, Professor Abdoulaye Djimde – co-ordinator of the West African Network for Clinical Trials of Antimalarial Drugs, said: “I must say that I’m very, very excited and very pleased to see the results of GanLum.

“Despite the progress that has been made recently, malaria is actually becoming more of a challenge because of many factors: climate change; funding cuts and others.

“The numbers are going in the wrong direction, added to that, the looming development of resistance.

“So having a new compound that is that effective and that safe is music to my ears.”

He added: “GanLum could represent the biggest advance in malaria treatment for decades, with high efficacy against multiple forms of the parasite as well as the ability to kill mutant strains that are showing signs of resistance to current medicines.”

Novartis said that the novel ingredient in GanLum, ganaplacide, was discovered after screening 2.3 million molecules.

GanLum is made up of ganaplacide and a new formulation of existing antimalarial lumefantrine, a longer-acting treatment.

The treatment is given as a sachet of granules once a day for three days.

Novartis said it plans to seek regulatory approvals from health authorities for GanLum as soon as possible.

Perfect portraits: from groups to selfies and candid snaps, expert tips

Portrait photography has come a long way from the days where everyone needed to be smiling directly into the camera, as a flash bulb popped.

And in fact, following on from an era where social media sites offered very curated, sometimes heavily filtered snapshots of our lives, more natural, candid images that really show off our personalities and experiences are now very much on trend. Think authentic photos of genuine moments where no-one is really paying attention to the camera. Instead they’re focused on enjoying what’s happening and the people they are with. For example, friends around a table enjoying a drink and a chat. Families engaged in a favourite activity. Photos that look like a glimpse into someone’s normal every day.

The best way to capture these in-the-moment shots? On a mobile: our ever-present, hand-held, do-everything device that has steadily taken over photography in the 26 years since the first camera phone appeared. Samsung’s newest device, the Galaxy S25 FE offers a wealth of photography-first features, from multiple cameras, lenses and wide angle settings, to in-built AI technology that will help you take the best possible pictures, then easily edit them afterwards. And as a photographer who runs masterclasses in mobile photography I couldn’t wait to try it out.

The phone itself is slim and lightweight, which makes it so much easier to hold steady, for clear, crisp, blur-free images, and take discreet, candid snaps.

Of course, we all have friends, family members and even pets who love performing for the camera. But for those who are a bit more reluctant to step into the frame, the Galaxy S25 FE offers a whole host of easy-to-use, fun AI features that will have even the most camera-shy feeling completely confident and ready for their close-up.

Samsung’s Drawing Assist function is a prime example and was an absolute hit with my kids, transforming our Sunday afternoon walk from a litany of moaning and dragging feet into a fun-filled adventure involving a lucky escape from the shark that apparently now lives in the park pond, and flying through the air with some giant balloons.

And all it took was a few simple, if strategically positioned snaps and some quick sketches using the Sketch to Image* function when editing the photo. This works best when you have some space in the frame around your subjects so you can easily draw what you want to add. In the shark image, for example, we needed enough water to the left of my kids for the shark to emerge from.

In the photo where the children are flying with the balloons, I needed them to be high up against the sky, and I also wanted the trees visible to add some context to the story we were trying to tell. They’re on top of the boulders, but I had to crouch down on the ground to cut out the houses in the background. By using the Generative Edit** function I was then able to replace the boulders with trees and then used Sketch to Image to draw in some balloons to make it look like they were floating away.

You don’t need to be an amazing artist for Sketch to Image to work well either, just enough line and shape for the app to recognise what you want to add into your image. The only limit here is your imagination and creativity. Involving the kids in some fun photography also meant that I got to capture some real, candid moments of them in the beautiful Autumn sunshine, with none of the usual complaints.

While playing around with reality can be fun, the Galaxy S25FE’s other AI features can also be used to make more subtle adjustments to enhance your images.

Just a few minutes of work with the Generative Edit function on a day out with a friend, helped me erase two unwanted photobombers from a photo (in which she perfectly co-ordinated with the graffitied heart wall in Borough Market). While removing some distracting weedkiller from the table where my cat was basking in the sunshine ensured the perfect pic where I can really appreciate him in all his fluffy glory.

Aside from fun and helpful editing functions, the phone’s AI technology is also running in the background to give your photos a boost, whatever and whenever you are capturing them.

This is great when you’re shooting challenging lighting conditions, for example at night. Dark, grainy and blurred photos are a thing of the past, with Samsung’s Nightography feature. Tapping the yellow moon icon that appears in dim lighting will enable this clever function which captures multiple images and then uses AI to blend them together to create one sharper, brighter image.

This can take a few seconds, so you’ll need to keep very still when using this feature – if you can, brace your arms on a table and hold the phone with two hands to keep the camera as steady as possible. It also helps if your subject is still, so this is more for capturing adults and older kids than snapping a restless pet or fast-moving child.

For these trickier subjects, from youngsters to four-legged friends, the excellent autofocus on the device makes for pin-sharp portraits rendered in high definition. And if you couple that with the outstanding Samsung colour profile you get beautifully saturated, nicely contrasted images which really pop. All the colours are beautifully rendered and all skin tones (and fur tones) are true to life. No filters are needed here.

And this is not just true of portraits you take of other people. The 12 MP camera lens on the front of the phone makes for gorgeously rendered, high resolution selfies with a variety of crop options, so you can find the perfect angle or image composition.

Taking a selfie at a 1:1 square crop, as well as the standard 3:4 crop option means you can easily include a friend or family member in your photo. And there’s a lovely little feature where you can get the lens to zoom out a little by tapping the ‘two person’ icon to provide a little extra space.

The 9:16 crop option means you can opt for a more flattering, longer and thinner photo while the full frame cop allows you a more zoomed-in selfie.

And if you want to take your selfies to another level, the option to add a little skin toning and smoothing effect and iron out any wrinkles (or in my case remove evidence of a sleepless night) is one of the additional features that makes the selfie camera stand out!

The excellent battery life means you don’t need to worry about it lasting, even after a few hours of photo fun. And when your battery does run down, lightning fast charging will see you back at 60 per cent in just 30 minutes, so you don’t have to wait long until you are good to go again.

Overall, whether it is taking vibrant portraits of yourself or capturing creative, candid images of the people (and pets) in your lives, making memories you’ll want to share is easy and fun with the Galaxy S25 FE.

To find out more about the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE visit Samsung

*Samsung account login and network connection may be required for certain AI features.

**Samsung account login is required. Requires network connection.

Six big changes to expect in the Budget and how they will hit your finances

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has set the scene for tax rises in her autumn Budget on 26 November and everyone from homeowners to pension savers could be in her sights.

High inflation and an estimated £30bn fiscal shortfall are putting pressure on the government and ultimately the nation’s finances.

Reeves said in a speech in Downing Street earlier this month that “each of us must do our bit for the security of our country and the brightness of its future”.

This has been seen as a sign of tax rises to come, especially as the chancellor suggested that she had to “deal with the world as I find it, not the world as I might wish it to be”.

The rumour mill has been running for months and with just two weeks to go until the latest fiscal update, here are the key policy changes expected in the Budget and how they might impact your finances.

Labour’s main manifesto pledge when it came to power last year was that it wouldn’t raise national insurance (NI), income tax or VAT.

Reeves already raised employer NI contributions in her 2024 Budget and it is now expected that an income tax hike is coming.

There are rumours that the Treasury is considering an idea from the Resolution Foundation to increase income tax by 2p and reduce employees’ NI by the same amount, which the think tank says could raise £6bn and hit higher earners more than what Labour describes as “working people”.

But Sarah Coles, head of personal finance for Hargreaves Lansdown, said it would also hit self-employed people who pay income tax, but not employee NI.

She said: “They do pay NI, but a different class at a different rate, so they pay 6 per cent on profits over £12,570 up to £50,270 and 2 per cent on profits over £50,270. By only cutting NI for employed people, the system would put more of a burden on the self-employed.”

Commentators have also speculated that the chancellor could instead add 1p to the basic rate of tax, increasing it from 20 per cent to 21 per cent.

Laura Suter, director of personal finance at AJ Bell, said this would cost taxpayers up to £377 a year in extra tax, with anyone earning £50,270 or more facing the maximum hit.

She said: “While it’s possible income tax rates could be hiked across the board, higher and additional rate taxpayers already account for a disproportionate share of the income tax take. What’s more, increasingly aggressive rates risk discouraging people from taking promotions and progressing their career.

“An increase to the basic rate is easier to position as a shared burden since it affects almost all workers, as well as pensioners and some savers.”

Reeves already announced last year that pension savings will form part of an estate for inheritance tax calculations from 2027.

There is always speculation about restrictions on pension tax relief for higher earners but the latest rumours suggest the chancellor could reduce how much tax relief employees can get from contributing to their pension through salary sacrifice.

It has been suggested such a move means the average worker might be affected to the tune of £210 a year.

Antonia Medlicott, managing director of Investing Insiders, said: “The chancellor risks undermining trust in the system, which could deter people from saving or push higher earners into more risky products as they look for alternative ways to save tax.”

A mansion tax is popular among many Labour MPs and was a party policy under former leader Ed Miliband.

Reeves previously ruled out a mansion tax as shadow chancellor.

But there are now rumours that an effective mansion tax could be introduced by charging council tax on the sale of homes above £1.5m or even charging a 1 per cent annual levy on properties worth above £2m.

Just over 150,000 properties in England and Wales would fall into the £2m bracket today, according to Knight Frank calculations, mainly around London.

Many homebuyers will be hoping for changes to stamp duty, especially after the thresholds increased in April and pushed up the cost of buying a property.

Reeves will also be under pressure on property taxes after Tory leader Kemi Badenoch announced in her party conference speech that the Conservatives would scrap stamp duty if they were back in government.

That seems unlikely given the high levels of income the tax provides for the Treasury but there are rumours that stamp duty could be replaced with a new national property tax on home sales above £500,000, shifting the cost from buyers to sellers.

Rightmove figures show that just under a third of homes for sale in England are priced above £500,000 and would be subject to the proposed new annual property tax.

But this would again hit London hardest, where 59 per cent of listings have an asking price above £500,000 versus just 8 per cent in the northeast.

Johan Svanstrom, chief executive of Rightmove, suggests that shifting the burden of stamp duty onto a seller may be good for first-time buyers, although any savings may be offset by higher asking prices.

He added: “If the responsibility for property taxes shifts onto the sellers’ side, the government will need to really think through how this transition will be phased in to avoid slowing down the mass market. Those who have recently paid stamp duty as a buyer and would face paying property tax as a seller in the future would clearly be at a disadvantage.”

Reeves is also rumoured to be looking at replacing council tax with a new percentage charge on a property’s value annually – capped at a minimum of £800.

Landlords are already facing extra regulations from the Renters’ Rights Act and were hit with higher stamp duty charges in the previous Budget.

Another tax clampdown could be coming for landlords as the Treasury is now rumoured to be considering charging NI on rental income.

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said: “The private rented sector is a significant driver of labour and social mobility. It enables people to move for work, access higher education, and seize new opportunities – everything the government wants to promote as part of its growth agenda.

“Instead, landlords are facing yet more speculation about tax hikes that would hinder investment, reduce supply, and ultimately drive up rents.”

Reeves is keen to boost investment in the UK and in British stocks.

One way to do this could be to cut the cash ISA allowance to encourage more money to go into stocks and shares ISAs, although there is no guarantee that this would mean investing in British companies.

There are reports that a £12,000 cash ISA limit could be introduced, effectively cutting the allowance by almost half.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance for Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “This would be miserable news for diligent savers. If they’re saving for the short term, cash is the right home for their money, so they would end up being forced to pay more tax through no fault of their own.

“If they have a longer time horizon and they’re still in cash, then the reason they’re not investing yet isn’t anything to do with tax.”

When investing, your capital is at risk and you may get back less than invested. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

BA to fly Huntingdon train hero to Portugal

British Airways has said it will fly a victim of the Cambridgeshire mass stabbing to Portugal after Ryanair refused a refund on a missed flight.

Stephen Crean, 61, was due to fly to Austria on Wednesday, 5 November, to watch Nottingham Forest play SK Sturm Graz in the Europa League.

He was unable to make the journey, however, after sustaining stab wounds to his left hand, back, bottom and head in the attack on Saturday, 1 November.

After confronting the attacker, he managed to escape by crawling into an empty toilet and locking the door before the train arrived at Huntingdon station. Mr Crean was hailed a hero for his actions.

Speaking to The Independent, Mr Crean described how friends attempted to secure a refund for the missed Ryanair flight, but Ryanair stated that its air fares are “generally non-refundable”.

Commenting on the policy, Mr Crean said: “That’s what they’ve said, and they’re going to stand by that, and I find it rather sad and childish.”

“It’s not all about money. It’s got nothing to do with money. And they should know that – it could have been Ryanair staff in that buffet car.”

A day after Mr Crean spoke out about the non-refund policy, British Airways told The Independent that it has offered Mr Crean two return Club Europe (business class) seats to Porto to see Nottingham Forest take on Sporting Braga next year.

The match, taking place on Thursday, 22 January, is the football club’s first-ever European game played in Portugal.

The airline has also arranged two-night accommodation for two people in the five-star PortoBay Flores hotel, via their package-provider, British Airways Holidays.

Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest have arranged tickets for Mr Crean to attend the Sporting Braga game.

Calum Laming, British Airways’ Chief Customer Officer, said: “Stephen’s actions that day were heroic. In a moment of terrifying danger, he put the safety and welfare of others ahead of his own.

“We’re delighted to offer him this gesture as a small way of expressing our gratitude and recognition for his remarkable courage and bravery.”

In response to the news, Mr Crean commented: “So many people have been so kind since the incident happened, it’s been incredibly overwhelming.

“I’m really grateful to British Airways for making this happen and I can’t wait to get on the plane to Portugal to watch the Reds hopefully bring home a win.”

Read more: ‘It’s sad and childish’ – Huntingdon attack hero responds after Ryanair denies refund