Two sisters have ruined their lives by posting naked photos of their father’s mistress on an escort website, with one facing jail and the other losing her job as a police officer.

Eleanor and Sophie Brown posted private intimate pictures of the woman, who had an affair with their father, Geoff, a decade earlier.

The sisters also added the telephone number of the woman’s husband, which resulted in him receiving several calls from men.

Eleanor, 24, of Morley, West Yorks, is facing a prison sentence after she admitted disclosing private photographs without consent midway through her trial at Leeds Crown Court. Sophie quit her job with the police.

The court was told last week that Eleanor had uploaded photos to the escort website in 2022 along with the phone number of the former mistress’s husband for people to contact.

These actions were said to have caused the woman “a deep, sickening feeling of complete panic” and affected her husband’s business.

Geoff Brown, the sisters’ father, conducted an affair with the woman more than ten years ago while both were married, the court heard.

The affair was discovered by the family in 2015 when Sarah Brown, who is still the wife of Geoff and the sisters’ mother, found intimate footage that the woman had shared with her husband.

Eleanor began targeting the woman seven years later, posting “derogatory comments” about her on the website of her husband’s business and sending him intimate photos of his wife directly via WhatsApp.

She also contacted the couple’s daughter and told her: “I will make sure your mum is never allowed to forget what she did to my family.”

Meanwhile, Sophie resigned from her role as a patrol officer with West Yorkshire Police after she was found guilty of gross misconduct. A disciplinary hearing in April banned her from policing for life.

At the hearing, it was revealed that the sisters had planned to post the naked photographs on Gumtree and were going to advertise sexual services for £5, but settled instead on using an escort website.

While Eleanor carried out many of the actions, they were “initiated and encouraged” by Sophie, the panel was told.

During Eleanor’s trial, the prosecution described the actions as “a mean and calculated effort to cause distress in an act of revenge”.

Eleanor initially denied two charges of sharing private sexual photographs without consent, but changed her plea to guilty before she was set to give evidence in her own defence.

Judge Alexander Menary said that her admission of guilt had come at the “eleventh hour and 59th minute”.

Adjourning the hearing until sentencing next month, the judge said that it was “almost inevitable” she would go to prison but granted her bail.

Ministers are “apoplectic” that domestic abusers have been freed from jail without electronic tags required under their licences, Jess Phillips has said.

The safeguarding minister said the Government had been shocked to discover that hundreds of offenders had been freed from prison without being electronically tagged after staff shortages led to delays in fitting the devices.

The Telegraph revealed on Thursday that offenders freed without tags included domestic abusers, where the devices play a key role in enforcing home curfews and geographical bans designed to prevent the offenders from approaching or contacting their victims.

The problems are believed to have been compounded by the early release of hundreds of prisoners under the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) scheme launched earlier this month to prevent jails running out of space.

Speaking on Sky News, Ms Phillips said: “I am, as is the Justice Secretary and prisons minister – who I have spoken to about this – apoplectic at the idea that there are contracts that are slow [to fit prisoners with tags].

“One thing I have ensured is put in place is that any of the backlog that has an issue with domestic abuse will be a priority for tagging.”

‘We are holding Serco to account’

The tagging delays emerged before Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, unveiled plans to give police and other agencies powers to impose lifetime bans on domestic abusers approaching their victims and pilot schemes to place domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms to help police respond appropriately to victims.

Under the rules, tags have to be fitted within 48 hours of a prisoner being freed from jail. The ex-offender has to stay at a fixed address for that length of time so it can be done.

It is understood staff shortages have meant Serco, the company which manages the Government’s Electronic Monitoring Services system, has not fitted them to the freed prisoners within the required 48-hour deadline.

This has led to a backlog which has meant offenders have been able to walk free from their homes after 48 hours without any tags. Sources said the backlogs had been compounded because when Serco staff turned up to fit the tags, the ex-prisoners could be out.

The MoJ said: “We are holding Serco to account to address delays in fitting some offenders with tags, and will apply financial penalties against the company if this is not resolved quickly.

“While this issue is ongoing, we have prioritised tagging domestic abuse offenders to make sure their licence conditions, such as staying away from their victims, are strictly followed.”

‘A national emergency’

Ms Phillips said domestic abuse had been treated as the “Cinderella” of crimes. Speaking to Times Radio, she said: “I have listened for years (to) people saying … ‘we can’t do this because of this’, and it’s always about domestic abuse. We never, ever say is there the manpower for other forms of crimes?”

She added: “Domestic abuse and violence against women and girls has always been the Cinderella. And actually, working with police over the last couple of weeks, I think for the first time I am noticing how much they recognise there is a national emergency, a total national emergency, and they are, I have to say, quite delighted that the Government is putting quite so much priority into it.”

Serco, which took over the electronic monitoring contract in May, said it had been “working hard to reduce the number of people waiting to have a tag fitted”, and that it was prioritising cases “based on risk profiles”.

Rachel Reeves has demanded that pictures of men by male artists are removed from the state room in No 11 Downing Street.

The Chancellor has reportedly imposed a new female-only rule on the decor, meaning that all artworks on display in the state room must be “of a woman or by a woman”.

The aim is to celebrate “amazing” female figures, but a Tory source branded the move “pathetic gesture politics”.

It comes three weeks after Sir Keir Starmer had a portrait of Baroness Thatcher removed from her former study in No 10, leading to claims by the Conservative Party that he has “got a problem with women”.

He later said he took down the painting because he does not like pictures of people staring down at him and prefers landscapes.

According to reports in the Guardian and the Daily Mail, Ms Reeves told an all-female reception at No 11 this week: “This is King James behind me, but next week the artwork in this room is going to change.

“Every picture in this room is either going to be of a woman or by a woman – and we’re also going to have a statue in this room of Millicent Fawcett, who did so much for the rights of women.”

Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Mid Buckinghamshire, told The Telegraph: “This seems an odd priority, but if she’s determined to do it, I expect Margaret Thatcher will feature prominently.”

Reports suggest the painting of James II will be relegated to the storage room.

The state room, which runs the entire width of No 11, is most regularly used for formal occasions. Overlooking the shared Downing Street gardens, it features two grand 18th-century marble fireplaces, as well as what the Government has described as “two of No 11’s finest treasures” – a pair of antique black and gold lacquered Chinese cabinets.

Ms Reeves, who is Britain’s first female Chancellor, has vowed to champion women’s interests in Government, pledging to build a more female-friendly economy and “close the gender pay gap once and for all”.

She has already removed a Treasury portrait of Nigel Lawson, Lady Thatcher’s chancellor, suggesting it could be replaced by a number of women in politics who have “hugely inspired” her.

The Treasury has been approached for comment.

A woman who accused Mohammed Fayed of sexual assault was allegedly warned she might “have an accident” by his bodyguard.

After making a formal complaint to Harrods, the woman is said to have received a note from the late John Macnamara, a former Metropolitan Police officer, saying she must rescind her allegation.

“You are a girl alone in London, someone could jump out the bushes at you, or you could have a sudden accident,” the note said.

The allegation came as a lawyer representing dozens of women who claim to have been abused by Fayed insisted Harrods must take responsibility for the years of sexual abuse allegedly committed by the “monster”.

Barrister Dean Armstrong KC, who is representing some of the tycoon’s reported victims, told a press conference that the case “combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein”.

He said: “I have many years of practice… I have never seen a case as horrific as this.”

Addressing how the case combined elements of three of the most high-profile abuse scandals, he said: “Savile because in this case, as in that, the institution, we say, knew about the behaviour.

“Epstein because in that case, as in this, there was a procurement system in place to source the women and girls – as you know there are some very young victims.

“And Weinstein, because it was a person at the very top of the organisation who was abusing his power.

“We will say plainly, Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster.”

It comes after new allegations about Fayed, who died last year at the age of 94, were published by the BBC on Friday.

More than 20 women claimed they were sexually assaulted by the billionaire, and five of those said they were raped.

The women, who worked at Harrods from the late 1980s to the 2000s, said assaults were carried out at the company’s offices, in Fayed’s London apartment or on foreign trips, often at the Ritz hotel in Paris.

In the expose, the BBC claims Harrods not only failed to intervene but also helped cover up allegations against Fayed.

Another barrister representing the victims, Maria Mulla, revealed that Fayed’s former head of security told a victim that she might meet with an “accident” after she reported being assaulted by Fayed to Harrods.

Ms Mulla said: “One woman that we represent was sexually assaulted, and she had the bravery and courage to raise this in a formal written complaint to Harrods.

“On the same day of making this written complaint, the head of security John Macnamara contacted her and said, ‘You are a girl alone in London, someone could jump out the bushes at you, or you could have a sudden accident.’”

The victim was told to write a second letter contradicting her initial claims and Ms Mulla said she “did as she was told because she was absolutely petrified.”

The barrister also said that they are now investigating other companies owned by Fayed after they were made aware of allegations against him “at other places of work,” such as women who were employed by the Ritz.

The press conference, held by the legal team featured in the BBC documentary Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, also featured one of the survivors who described Fayed as “clever and highly manipulative,” saying he behaved like a “father figure” to trick his young employees.

Natacha, who was 19 at the time, added that the former Harrods chairman would urge her to “‘call me papa’” and said that he “preyed on the most vulnerable”.

“It feels good to change the legacy of a man who really was a monster,” she said.

At the press conference on Friday morning, Mr Armstrong urged the department store to ensure the victims were properly compensated.

The barrister said: “We are here to say publicly and to the world, or Harrods in front of the world, that it is time that they took responsibility, and it is time that they set matters right, and that is something they should do as soon as possible.”

He added: “They need to face up to accept the responsibility that they have full culpability for the abuse of these women.”

American attorney Gloria Allred, who has specialised in women’s rights for more than four decades, told the press conference Harrods was a “toxic, unsafe and abusive environment” under the chairmanship of Fayed.

She said: “The allegations against Mohammed Fayed include serial rape, attempted rape, sexual battery, and sexual abuse of minors. They involved doctors administering invasive gynaecological exams as a condition of employment for some of the employees who were targeted by Mohammed Fayed for sexual abuse.

“The allegations also include the unauthorised disclosure to Mohammed Al Fayed of the examination results of employees he targeted for sexual abuse.

“Underneath the Harrods glitz and glamour was a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment.”

The lawyer, who has represented the victims of Weinstein, Epstein and R. Kelly, added: “Al Fayed’s legacy was to pray upon, denigrate, humiliate and abuse female employees for his own sexual gratification.”

She called him the “epitome of a serial sexual abuser” and said that this “is a teaching moment for Harrods” and for corporations all over the world.

Mr Armstong said his team was now working on behalf of 37 alleged victims.

Another barrister, Bruce Drummond, added that the scandal is “one of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation” that he and “perhaps the world has ever seen”.

He said: “It was absolutely horrific and I can’t stress that word enough.”

Mr Drummond said some of Mr Al Fayed’s accusers have ended up in “psychiatric care” and are unable to form relationships decades later because of the “lifelong” trauma.

He said: “This should never have happened and Harrods must accept responsibility for the damage these women have suffered.”

Ms Murra warned that the lawyers are aware of more harrowing accounts of assault than the ones revealed by the BBC, saying they are “the worst sexual assaults that you can imagine”.

Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, a Harrods spokesman said: “Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”

Sir Keir Starmer has been urged by Labour MPs to stop accepting gifts.

The Prime Minister is facing a revolt from backbenchers over his refusal to stop taking items such as clothes and football tickets.

Several MPs have accused him of “hypocrisy” and “double standards”.

Senior figures are said to be “livid” by his decision to take so many gifts, with one MP warning it gives the impression “he’s more interested in himself” than the challenges facing the country.

The row intensified this week when Sir Keir was accused of breaching parliamentary rules by failing to declare that Lord Alli, a millionaire Labour donor, bought clothes for his wife.

The Prime Minister has since suggested he would continue to accept handouts from the media mogul, insisting “the important thing is that they’re declared in accordance with the rules”.

On Thursday, Baroness Harman, the former deputy Labour leader, said Sir Keir should stop trying to “justify” the gifts as it is “making things worse”.

Several Labour MPs have now urged him to refuse any further “freebies” and focus instead on helping the people he was elected to represent.

One backbencher on the Left of the party told The Telegraph: “He should stop taking freebies immediately.

“It gives the impression that he’s more interested in himself than he is about the difficult situation facing the poorest in our country who we are supposed to represent.

“I don’t know of anyone who thinks this is a good idea. Friends and colleagues are mortified.”

Another MP from Labour’s centrist wing lashed out at the Prime Minister’s decision to accept complimentary tickets to sporting and cultural events.

“He keeps saying he has to go in the posh seats to be protected, ultimately saving money for all of us,” the MP said.

“But we know that most of these freebies were when he was Leader of the Opposition, so is he saying he needed more protection then (when he was relatively unknown) than the Prime Minister who sat in the stands?”

They added: “Loads of us (senior Labour backbenchers) are livid. This is what hypocrisy looks like – and most of us have been fighting the ‘they’re all the same’ rhetoric for our whole careers, Keir’s double standards just prove it’s entirely accurate.”

Another Labour MP added their voice to calls for the Prime Minister to stop taking freebies, pointing out that ordinary people “don’t have any gifts adorned on them”.

“They pay their own way, and we should be as closely connected to our constituents as we possibly can,” they said.

They said that “all MPs really need to reflect” on whether they should take gifts, adding: “Whenever I hear these stories, I’m absolutely horrified, because I just think, where did the Labour Party come from?

“The party came from working people who just wanted a better lot in life, and that should be our sole focus, not what we can take from the system. It’s just, I think, completely lost its direction and purpose.

“And certainly I want nothing to do with that, but I don’t want my party to either, because I think we’ve got a value, a kind of a moral framework, a value base, which is rooted in our cause, and this sits outside of that framework.”

On Friday, Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, described the row over Lord Alli’s donations to Labour as an “annoying” distraction but insisted the Government would keep “cracking on” with the job at hand.

His donations have included tens of thousands of pounds worth towards clothing, accommodation and “multiple pairs” of spectacles for Sir Keir and £5,000 towards clothes and personal shopping for his wife, Lady Starmer.

Russian pensioners are being killed on the front lines of Ukraine after signing up to collect generous financial rewards for joining their country’s invasion force.

An investigation into the deaths of Russian soldiers revealed that 250 volunteers who were more than 60 years old have died since the beginning of the war in February 2022.

It also found that volunteers who signed up to join the armed forces after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion make up the highest percentage of those killed in combat.

The BBC’s Russian service and Mediazona, an independent news website, have verified the names of more than 70,000 Russian troops who have died fighting in Ukraine.

A fifth of those killed – 13,781 – were volunteers, while former prisoners who signed up in exchange for clemency accounted for 19 per cent of the confirmed deaths.

Most of the volunteers dying at the front are aged between 42 and 50, but pensioners were also discovered to have been killed.

The oldest volunteer killed in combat was 71 years old, according to the investigation.

It is likely that older men from poorer regions of Russia are being enticed by generous sign-up payments, often many times higher than the average wage.

One man identified, Rinat Khusniyarov, 62, from Ufa in Bashkortostan, had been working two jobs – at a tram depot and a plywood factory – to make ends meet.

He was killed on Feb 27, surviving just three months in the army after signing his military contract in November last year. An obituary shared on an online memorial website described him as a “hardworking, decent man”.

Most of the Russian volunteers killed in Ukraine come from small towns, where meaningful employment is hard to come by.

Ukrainian estimates put the Russian death toll as high as 200,000.

Most of the soldiers are sent to the front line with very little training and poor equipment.

The fresh troops are then thrown into costly wave attacks, known as the “meat grinder”, where small infantry units are sent to attack Ukrainian defensive positions in the hope of eventually overwhelming them.

These units, known as “Storm Z”, were usually manned by former prisoners and it appears that volunteers, including pensioners, are also being used in the ruthless Russian tactic.

Western officials say that morale within the Russian rank-and-file is especially poor because of this.

A Russian document, cited in a report by The Guardian, suggested that troops in the Russian border region Kursk, where Ukraine now occupies territory, have been in disarray after Kyiv’s incursion in August.

It reveals concerns over morale were intensified after a soldier killed himself having spent a “prolonged state of depression due to his service in the Russian army”.

Unit commanders have been given orders on how to maintain the “psychological condition” of their men.

They are told to identify troops who are “mentally unprepared to fulfil their duties or prone to deviant behaviour and organise their reassignment and transfer to military medical facilities”.

Instructions also call for political instruction every day, “aimed at maintaining and raising the political, moral and psychological condition of the personnel”.

Israel has said it destroyed 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers in one of the most intense bombing raids into Lebanon since the war began.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said fighter jets also struck additional “terrorist infrastructure sites” consisting of some 1,000 barrels, from which missiles are fired, that were ready to be used in the “immediate future” against Israel.

No one appears to have died in Thursday night’s strikes, which were focused away from major population centres to avoid further escalation.

Shortly after the attack, the IDF instructed residents of seven communities along the Lebanese border, as well as communities in the northern Golan Heights, to minimise movements, avoid gatherings, control community gates and stay close to shelters.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon urged de-escalation, saying it had witnessed “a heavy intensification of the hostilities across the Blue Line”, a UN-drawn frontier that separates Israel from Lebanon in the absence of a mutual agreement.

Lebanon’s ambassador to London warned on Thursday that the country’s army, which receives some training from British soldiers, would not “stand idly” in the event of a major ground invasion from Israel. Rami Mortada said an attack could lead to a “doomsday” scenario and a radicalisation backlash in Europe.

Israel’s attack comes as Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, warned Israel that it had “crossed a red line” with this week’s pager and walkie-talkie attacks that left over 3,000 wounded and dozens killed.

“The enemy went beyond all controls, laws and morals,” Nasrallah said in his speech on Thursday, adding that the attacks could be considered “war crimes or a declaration of war”.

“We have suffered a heavy blow. This is war, this is conflict. We know the enemy, not only Israel, but also the US and Nato, has technological superiority,” he said.

Nasrallah also ridiculed the prospects of an Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon: “What they see as a threat we see as an opportunity.”

The Hezbollah leader touted “impressive achievements in the north of Israel” while warning Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, that the residents of northern Israel would only return when a ceasefire in Gaza was reached.

“We will not stop our attacks as long as the enemy continues its war in Gaza,” Nasrallah said.

Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, also weighed in and warned that Israel would be met with “a crushing response from the axis of resistance and we will witness the destruction of this bloodthirsty and criminal regime”.

“Such terrorist acts are undoubtedly the result of the Zionist regime’s despair and successive failures,” Salami added.

Meanwhile, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, predicted that there were “significant opportunities but also significant risks” in what he referred to as the “new phase of the war”.

Mr Gallant said that Hezbollah felt that it was being “persecuted and the sequence of military actions will continue”.

“Our goal is to ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes. As time goes by, Hezbollah will pay an increasing price,” he added.

How or when the pagers that detonated in Lebanon on Tuesday were weaponised remains a public mystery. The hunt for answers has involved Taiwan, Bulgaria, Norway and Romania. On Friday, authorities in Taiwan and Bulgaria denied involvement in the pagers’ supply chain.

Security sources said Israel was responsible for the pager explosions that raised the stakes in a growing conflict between the two sides. Israel has not directly commented on the attacks.

Robert F Kennedy Jr had an affair with a political reporter whom he invited to his mansion and took hiking in the mountains for a feature on his presidential campaign.

Olivia Nuzzi, the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, admitted on Thursday that “the nature of some communications between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal”. She has been placed on leave from the outlet.

Ms Nuzzi, 31, did not mention Mr Kennedy, 70, who is married to Cheryl Hines, the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress, by name, but sources confirmed to US media the subject of the affair. Mr Kennedy did not deny the relationship, which Ms Nuzzi insists was not physical, and said he only met her once.

Mr Kennedy and Ms Nuzzi are believed to have started communicating at the start of the year while she was engaged and he was married.

The relationship between the pair is understood to have begun shortly after Ms Nuzzi penned a 4,300-word profile on Mr Kennedy in November 2023, while he was still running to be president as an independent, Status news reported.

Ms Nuzzi is considered to be one of the most seasoned political correspondents in the US, having written for The Washington Post, Politico, GQ, and Esquire. She was personally invited by Donald Trump for an exclusive press conference at the White House in 2018.

Asked about their relationship, a Kennedy spokesman said: “Mr Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”

The “hit piece” involved Ms Nuzzi visiting Mr Kennedy’s $6.6 million (£5 million) mansion in Brentwood, California, which he shares with Hines, his third wife. During their interview, Ms Nuzzi and Mr Kennedy drove around the area with his dogs and went hiking together in the Santa Monica mountains.

The New York Magazine piece featured in-depth analysis of Mr Kennedy’s persona, mannerisms and political beliefs. In a personal account, Ms Nuzzi highlighted Mr Kennedy’s “chill disposition”, which she said was the “rest of the political world’s simmering panic attack” as she pointed out his position in the polls.

A spokesman for New York Magazine said it had found “no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias” in her reporting, while a source told Status news that Ms Nuzzi did not use Mr Kennedy as a source in any of her reporting on the upcoming presidential election.

The revelations have led to accusations that she “puffed up” the candidate before he dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump last month.

In an resurfaced interview Ms Nuzzi did with The New York Times in March after the relationship allegedly began, she suggested political commentators may be “purposefully ignoring” the fact that the presidential election is a “three-man race”.

“A majority of Americans say they are unhappy with another ‘lesser of two evils’ contest, and they’re in luck, as they have a range of third-party candidates to choose from,” Ms Nuzzi said.

“One of those candidates, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is polling competitively, especially among young people, and he’s steadily gaining ballot access across the country.”

More comments also resurfaced from Ms Nuzzi in which she criticised the depiction of female reporters in movies. In 2015, she wrote on Twitter: “Why does Hollywood think female reporters sleep with their sources?”

In her statement, Ms Nuzzi said the relationship “should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict”, adding: “I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologise to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York”.

The Washington correspondent had been engaged to Ryan Lizza, a Politico reporter, since 2022, but the pair called off their marriage “in the last few weeks”, sources told the New York Post.

Mr Kennedy, who has been married to Hines since 2014, has previously acknowledged “numerous infidelities” throughout his marriage to Mary Richardson to “keep my sanctity”. In diary entries obtained by the New York Post, he said his “lust demons” were his “greatest defect”.

Emmanuel Macron has reportedly objected to France’s new prime minister, Michel Barnier, appointing a senator who campaigned against same-sex marriage as “families minister” in his new cabinet.

Mr Macron, 46, slapped down Mr Barnier’s proposal to offer the symbolic ministerial post to Laurence Garnier, a conservative senator from the Right-wing Republican party who recently approved regulations on children’s access to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

The leaked proposal sparked howls of protest from the French Left, which warned the Barnier government was “veering to the far-Right”.

Mr Barnier, 73, a Right-winger and the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, has been scrambling to form a new government after Mr Macron appointed him prime minister two weeks ago following weeks of political deadlock in the wake of snap elections in July that ended in a hung parliament.

The first batch of names were leaked on Thursday evening, with the full 16-minister Cabinet due to be officially announced by Sunday at the latest.

Mr Barnier proposed handing Bruno Retailleau,a Right-wing traditionalist senator, the powerful post of interior minister while Macron loyalists were offered seven other ministerial posts.

On Friday, it emerged that he had proposed Ms Garnier – seen as close to Mr Retailleau – as families minister to succeed Sarah El Haïry, a centrist who was the first female minister to make public her homosexuality and her pregnancy resulting from medically assisted procreation.

According to an aide, Mr Macron “alerted” the prime minister to Ms Garnier’s “delicate profile”, saying he was opposed to it.

“The president does not want the new team to unravel his reforms. Garnier’s positions are the antithesis of what has been defended by previous [government] teams,” one unnamed ex-minister told BFMTV.

Another aide close to the negotiations said: “In the final analysis, Michel Barnier is the arbiter: it’s his government. Constitutionally, it is not the president who directly rejects this or that case. He does not block. But he can sound the alarm.”

Reports of her potential appointment caused consternation on the Left.

“I’m speechless. I’m just mad as hell,” said Manon Aubry, a Leftist MEP from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed party, LFI. MP Sarah Legrain, also from LFI, called her potential nomination a “huge provocation”.

“We have a government that looks set to bring back all the losers of the elections,” said MP Mathilde Panot, also from LFI. “The names cited so far indicate an extreme Right-wing tendency on the part of Macron. There is no respect for universal suffrage,” she said.

Some Macron supporters were also dismayed.

Guillaume Gouffier Valente, an MP from the Left wing of Mr Macron’s Renaissance party, said: “Certain rumours about her appointment to the government are particularly worrying when it comes to defending the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people.

“These battles will never be negotiable’, he wrote on X, calling for “an extremely clear position” from Mr Barnier during his general policy statement on Oct 1.

‘Rather than change, we have a restoration’

Socialist former French president François Hollande, now an MP in the Left-wing alliance, said Mr Macron and Mr Barnier seemed to have forgotten that many centrist and Right-wing MPs owed their election in July to a “Republican front” that saw Left-wingers pull out of the second round to prevent the National Rally from winning.

“Why was there a dissolution if it was only to get more or less the same people, even further to the Right?” he asked. “Rather than change, we have a restoration.”

Ms Garnier won plaudits for steering the review of a Macron Bill to introduce quotas for women in senior positions in large companies.

But in 2013 she opposed same-sex marriage and supported the Manif pour tous (anti-gay marriage) movement against François Hollande’s legalisation, which was passed that year.

In 2021, she also opposed the creation of an offence punishing conversion therapies, practices designed to impose heterosexuality on LGBT people.

And in February 2024, she voted against enshrining the guaranteed freedom to have an abortion in the Constitution: “Our fellow citizens expect the government to focus on putting our country back on its feet, rather than on problems that don’t exist,” she argued.

A few weeks later, she approved a controversial senate bill aimed at regulating gender transitions among minors, notably by banning the prescription of cross-sex hormones and imposing strict conditions on the administration of “puberty blockers” to these young people.

France’s snap legislative elections in July left the National Assembly split into three blocs around a Left-wing alliance, the Macron-compatible centre and Marine Le Pen’s populist and Eurosceptic National Rally.

The Left-wing New Popular Front has the largest number of MPs but Mr Macron rejected its proposed prime minister, saying she would be instantly deposed in a motion of no confidence. Privately telling aides he was convinced France was essentially a “Right-wing country”, he picked Mr Barnier after receiving assurances from the Le Pen camp it would not automatically vote against him.

France is in urgent need of passing a budget to deal with a burgeoning public deficit due to hit 5.6 per cent of GDP this year. Pierre Moscovici, the state auditor president, warned on Friday that the budget risked being “the hardest to put together in the history of the Fifth Republic”.

One of Sir Keir Starmer’s most prominent donors demanded a crackdown on “bullying newspapers”.

Lord Alli, the Prime Minister’s largest personal donor, called for restrictions on the number of newspapers that a proprietor could own.

He also called for a new offence of “corporate intimidation” to tackle what he called the “bullying” of public figures by newspapers.

On Wednesday night, Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, said she had not met Lord Alli to discuss any of these ideas, and said she had no plans to tighten regulation of the press.

The forthright comments by the peer may heighten fears that the party could give into his demands to restrict press freedom in return for his donations.

Press intimidation

Lord Alli, who made his fortune in the TV industry, has given Labour almost £1 million in donations, including clothes for Sir Keir and his wife worth in excess of £25,000.

He also allowed Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, to stay in a $2.5 million flat in New York over New Year’s Eve, which is listed as his current residence.

In a speech in the Lords in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry into the British press in 2013, he proposed making it a new offence for the press to coerce individuals into giving them information about their private life.

“Like others, I am a little disappointed by some elements of the newspaper industry, who have deliberately misrepresented the report in order to scare the public in pursuit of their own self-interest,” he said.

“I would like a new offence on the statute book to deal with the issue of press intimidation. When a newspaper group uses information on an individual to coerce them into revealing details of their own or others’ private lives in return for protection or non-publication, it feels to me like blackmail, and we should make it a criminal offence.

“The lobbying of newspaper groups on their own behalf in their own papers needs to be looked at again.”

He also used his speech to argue for a state-funded press regulator.

Media ownership laws

A year later, in an interview with the Financial Times, he criticised Tony Blair’s New Labour for being too close to tabloid newspapers.

“I think we [in New Labour] started it, and we got it wrong,” he said. “In that rush to feed the 24/7 media, we just forgot to regulate it, and it forgot to regulate itself.”

He said politicians had let journalists intimidate them in the same “shameful” way that Militant once intimidated Labour, adding that he had spoken to party colleagues about his idea of instituting a new offence of “corporate intimidation”.

“When companies or newspapers use their power to intimidate individuals or politicians, it is no more acceptable than when the Mafia does it to a shopkeeper,” he said, adding: “It is blackmail.”

He also said he wanted to change media ownership laws so that no company could own three or more newspapers, “because it just upsets me”.

He added: “The thing about Rupert Murdoch that’s so brilliant is, before he walks in the door people are trying to work out what to give him.”

Lord Alli also defended the licence fee in the Lords, saying: “The licence fee system, where we as citizens jointly pay for the BBC, should remain in place.

“It is right that the licence fee should be increased in line with inflation through the charter review period. I believe that there is a strong case for more money to be invested in the BBC.”

A source close to Ms Nandy said there are no plans for further legislation on press regulation, and Ms Nandy is opposed to the idea that politicians should be telling the press what they can and cannot say.

Parents often berate themselves for raising a fussy child but a study has found that disdain for certain foods is genetic.

Three-quarters of a child’s hatred for certain foods can be blamed on the genes they inherit from their parents, a UCL study reveals, with environmental and social factors responsible for other picky eating tendencies.

A long-running study on 2,400 pairs of twins gathered information from parents about their food preferences as the two children grew up.

Genetics accounted for 60 per cent of fussiness at 16 months old, the scientists found, rising to 74 per cent between ages three and 13.

Food fussiness often lends itself to selectivity for certain textures or tastes and a reluctance to branch out into different cuisines.

“Food fussiness is common among children and can be a major source of anxiety for parents and caregivers, who often blame themselves for this behaviour or are blamed by others,” said study lead author Dr Zeynep Nas from UCL.

“We hope our finding that fussy eating is largely innate may help to alleviate parental blame. This behaviour is not a result of parenting.

“Our study also shows that fussy eating is not necessarily just a ‘phase’, but may follow a persistent trajectory.”

Genes play a big role in picky eating

The study looked at how picky pairs of twins were at dinnertime and analysed the variation between them. They then compared fraternal twins to identical twins to see if the eating patterns were different.

They found that identical twins were much more likely to not eat the same foods than fraternal twins.

Identical twins, which come from one fertilised egg, share 100 per cent of the same DNA but non-identical pairs, which come from two eggs, have 50 per cent of the same DNA, just like normal siblings.

This indicates that genes play a big role in picky eating, the study authors state. However, as children grow up their eating patterns change and twins become more unique, data shows.

Scientists suggest that this shows that environmental factors become more influential than genetics in dictating what foods people eat and like as they grow up.

“Although fussy eating has a strong genetic component and can extend beyond early childhood, this doesn’t mean it is fixed,” said Dr Alison Fildes, study senior author, from the University of Leeds.

“Parents can continue to support their children to eat a wide variety of foods throughout childhood and into adolescence, but peers and friends might become a more important influence on children’s diets as they reach their teens.”

The paper is published in the Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry.

A gallery has been ordered by police to take down a woman’s naked portrait from its window.

Val Harris, the owner of The Chair gallery in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, was visited by officers after neighbours complained about the painting, titled, This is not P—ography by artist Poppy Baynham.

It shows an abstract image of a headless naked woman’s body with her legs open. The figure is wearing red cowboy boots and has a black triangle and wool in place of her genitals.

Neighbours reportedly complained about the painting and claimed it was pornography.

Three days after it went on display police attended the gallery and told Ms Harris they had received complaints. They advised her to remove the painting from the gallery window and said the display could be a public order offence, she said.

Ms Harris has now placed a sign in front of the painting saying she is willing to “open up a dialogue on the issue” and welcomed those complaining to sign a book. She said the response had been 50:50.

The artist said she is delighted her artwork has created a debate and said the picture is still for sale.

She said: “That’s all an artist ever dreams of… their name getting out there and being heard and their work being seen.

“I just came to Hay thinking it would be a peaceful week but, no, we’ve stirred Hay up for sure!

“It just shows how closed-minded people are, and let’s say if I was a famous artist I don’t think anyone would say anything.”

Other locals in Hay said the complaints were unnecessary.

‘Exciting and playful’

Jessie Dixon told the BBC: “I thought of it as exciting and playful and I never thought of it as a sexual object or anything like that.”

Dawn Lewis, said: “It’s not my cup of tea but I can’t see it being offensive personally, it’s art.”

Dyfed Powys Police confirmed the visit and said it was “too early” to comment about possible further action.

Hay town council said it had not received any complaints about the painting and that no action was being planned or discussed.

A convicted burglar has won a £5.5 million payout after he was left with life-changing injuries and a phobia of kitchens following a stabbing in a prison canteen.

Steven Wilson, 36, suffered a torn liver, fractured spine and lacerated spinal cord when Patrick Chandler, a convicted murderer, stabbed him 16 times with a nine-inch knife at HMP Chelmsford in July 2018.

Mr Wilson later sued the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) claiming it had failed to adequately assess whether Chandler was safe for kitchen work as it gave him the opportunity to access knives and other sharp items.

The MoJ admitted liability for the attack and agreed Wilson was entitled to compensation.

However, lawyers argued that because he had a 20-year criminal record, with “next to no history” of having earned an honest penny, he should not get the £5 million-plus damages he was claiming.

But at the High Court on Friday, Judge Melissa Clarke awarded Wilson a compensation payout of just under £5.5 million, while also ordering the Government to pay his £546,000 lawyers’ bill on top.

The compensation was awarded after Wilson said he was left suffering from chronic pain as a result of the attack, as well as flashbacks, post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares.

Wilson, of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, was on remand for an aggravated burglary when he was attacked “out of the blue” by Chandler.

At the time, his attacker was only 24 days into a life sentence for the murder of John Comer, 45, in Lawford, Essex, in December 2017.

The formerly “fit and fearless” Wilson recalled Chandler “looking at him strangely” before he lashed out, as if he was “looking straight through him”.

He was stabbed in the stomach with such force that it lifted him off the ground, but survived with a range of severe injuries.

Chandler later admitted attempting to murder Wilson and received an additional life sentence and 10-year minimum term in November 2018.

Chandler’s overall risk rating had been assessed by the MoJ as “medium”, court documents disclosed, despite having allegedly told his supervisor two weeks before the attack that “he had fantasised about violence and what he was going to do to people and about making weapons”.

Giles Mooney KC, Wilson’s barrister, told the judge that once off the operating table he was treated in hospital for more than two months and had to use a wheelchair.

He now needs a stick to get around and cannot work as a result of the attack.

Giving evidence, Wilson told the judge: “I went in there a perfectly fit young man and came out in a wheelchair.”

He said he is still haunted by the attack, has a deep horror of knives and now tries to avoid going into the kitchen at all times.

“When I see knives I feel cold,” he said from the witness box. “You don’t understand the chill I get when I see a knife.

“I can’t be in a kitchen or around knives because it reminds me of the attack.”

MoJ barrister Richard Wheeler KC told the judge: “While the defendant accepts the claimant must be compensated for his injuries, that compensation must be fair, reasonable and just.”

He said that Wilson had a lengthy criminal record, including offences involving criminal damage, theft, driving, breach of community orders and violence.

Although he had at one point claimed to have earned £800 per week before going to jail, he had put forward “no evidence” of this, said the barrister.

At the time of the attack, Wilson was on remand for an aggravated burglary, for which he was later sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.

The MoJ argued that Wilson had made improvements in his condition since the attack and so did not need the level of care going forward that he claimed.

However, Mr Mooney insisted that the MoJ had “seriously undervalued” the claim and that he deserved the full payout.

An underwater statue inspired by a Shakespearean character has upset residents in Canterbury because they say it looks like a drowning woman.

The lifelike sculpture of a woman, named Alluvia and inspired by Ophelia from Hamlet, was installed in the River Stour in Kent last week.

The statue has been criticised for being “morbid and utterly tone deaf” because of its resemblance to a “drowning victim”, and residents have called for it to be removed.

The artwork was created by Jason deCaires Taylor, an award-winning artist, and replaced two previous, similar statues of women in the water that he had created and installed 15 years ago but had become damaged.

Made from recycled glass, LED’s and marine stainless steel, the contemporary sculpture is lit from within at night, bringing a contemporary twist to a 500-year-old tale.

In 1554, a wealthy judge in the area, Sir James Hales, took his own life in the River Stour after refusing to convert to Catholicism under Queen Mary.

As suicide was a crime his widow was denied her inheritance, which led to a trial so famous at the time that it shaped Shakespeare’s portrayal of Ophelia.

But residents have condemned the new work. “I find this sculpture absolutely appalling,” Craig Logman wrote on the council’s Facebook page, adding: “It’s not just offensive, it’s downright disturbing.

“The imagery of a submerged figure, reminiscent of a drowning victim, is both morbid and utterly tone deaf given the tragic drownings that occur along our coastlines.

“Frankly, it should be removed immediately.”

Samantha Bowen said: “I can’t be the only person who finds this deeply offensive. She looks like a drowned woman. How did the council not see the link to women as victims of crime or the sad fact [that] so many drown off the Kent coast as refugees?

“I’m stunned at the naivety of those who approved this.”

The project was sponsored Paul Abbott and Paul Roberts, two businessmen, and received no funding from the council.

The Canterbury Commemoration Society (CCS), which commissioned the sculpture, responded to the critics by saying: “If you don’t like it, don’t look.”

Stewart Ross, who leads the CCS, admitted members did not see the work before it was installed.

He said: “The overwhelming response from locals, tourists and further afield has been very positive.

“Of course, as always with new art, there are some who don’t like it, just as there were those who disliked our statue of Chaucer in the High Street and Beethoven’s symphonies when they were first heard.

“Moreover, it replaces two similar figures, also illuminated, that had lain without objection in the river for 15 years. If you don’t like it, don’t look.”

Charlotte Cornell, of Canterbury council, said: “Combining contemporary art with heritage is at the forefront of our approach to public art and Alluvia is the perfect piece for this location.”

Cllr Cornell acknowledged some people might find the sculpture disturbing but hoped it would be thought-provoking.

She said: “Alluvia is as much a metaphorical embodiment of the river, as she is of a woman.

“As a piece, she is possibly doing so much. She may allude to Shakespeare’s Ophelia, she may nod to the 1554 John Hales drowning. She may also be a comment on [the] poisoning of our waterways by modern development, sewage and farming. Or she could be a representation of the peace and tranquillity of nature.

“She could be all of these things, or she could be none – that’s the beauty of art.

“The piece asks questions of the viewer, as all art should. Some people will be upset, some disturbed.

“Others will be inspired and find a kind of beautiful ethereal quality in the sculpture. It’s not up to me to tell people how to feel.”

The King and Angela Rayner bonded over “ruthless” questions posed by child interviewers as they spent the day with young people from the King’s Trust in Scotland.

During a visit to see school children learning about nature in the garden of Dumfries House, Ms Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, told the King: “We were just saying how ruthless young people can be when they interview you.”

The King, laughing, replied: “Have you had the treatment [too]?”

He has found himself on the receiving end of children’s questions throughout his time in public life, from a 1983 Australian radio phone-in when a five year-old asked him if he likes to barbecue, to a 2017 trip to India when he found himself promising to “build a fort” when he was King at the insistence of a nine-year-old girl.

Ms Rayner, meanwhile, has been quizzed about her rise in politics during visits to schools. At Ashton Sixth Form College in July, she introduced herself as “Ange” to tell pupils she had found “a few nasties under the bonnet for us [Labour] to contend with” when they took over from the Conservatives.

She also joked that if “anything were to happen to Keir, touch wood, then I’d be running the country”.

On Friday, the King and Ms Rayner met a group of young woodland “experts” who took part in nature activities with the King’s Foundation.

They also joined a King’s Trust meeting to hear the “incredibly powerful” testimonies from two young men who reshaped their lives after being caught up in violence.

Joined by members of the Police Scotland-led Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, an initiative that aims to target all forms of violent behaviour, they heard about the Trust programmes to help young people find meaningful work and change their direction in life.

The King said: “I’m so grateful to you, and I look forward to updates on the progress you are making. Thank you.”

Addressing the two speakers, men in their 20s, Ms Rayner said: “What I find inspiring about what you say is the opportunities that were given so that you could find your voice and also help others.

“It’s incredibly powerful and hopefully the work you’re doing now and what you are achieving is giving opportunities to other people as well.”

In April 1983, a truck loaded with 2,000lb of explosives sped through the gate to the US embassy in Beirut and struck the building.

The blast turned the embassy into rubble and killed 63 people, including 52 American and Lebanese employees.

One of the men behind it was Ibrahim Aqil, a senior Hezbollah commander with a $7m US bounty on his head, who was allegedly killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut on Friday.

According to security sources, Aqil, also known as Tahsin, was the main target of the air strike on the city’s southern suburbs, considered a Hezbollah stronghold.

“The Israeli air strike killed Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil, its armed force’s second-in-command after Fuad Shukr,” a source close to Hezbollah told AFP.

Hezbollah has not officially confirmed his death, but it said after the strike that it had hit an Israeli intelligence base it claimed was responsible for unspecified “assassinations”.

Aqil, who was believed to be in his 60s, became second-in-command to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, following the killing of Fuad Shukr in an airstrike in Beirut in July.

The shadowy commander, whose only known photograph is decades old, is also the head of the Iran-backed militia’s special forces unit “Radwan”, which reportedly suffered heavy casualties during the two-day pager and walkie-talkie explosions.

Aqil also sits on the Jihad Council, Hezbollah’s highest military body. His alleged assassination indicates Israel is likely attempting to wipe out the senior Hezbollah leadership in fairly quick succession.

According to the US state department, he was a “principal member” of the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJU), a Lebanese Shia militia known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War.

The terror group claimed responsibility for the bombings of the US Embassy in Beirut on April 18 1983. Among the 63 killed were eight CIA officers, turning it into the single greatest loss of lives in the agency’s history.

Five months later on Oct 23 1983, the IJU carried out a second suicide bombing on the US Marine Corps barracks, killing 241 American personnel. Seconds later, a second bomber then killed 58 French paratroopers and six Lebanese civilians.

Aqil is believed to have helped mastermind both attacks. He is also accused of taking US and German hostages in Lebanon throughout the 1980s.

The strike on Friday afternoon was the third assassination in the Lebanese capital blamed on Israel since October 2023 when Hezbollah began cross-border clashes with Israel in support of Hamas over the Gaza war.

Israel announced this week it was shifting its war objectives to its northern border with Lebanon. Soon after, thousands of pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices belonging to Hezbollah simultaneously detonated in twin attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 and wounding over 3,000.

Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Hezbollah, vowed on Thursday that Israel would face retribution for the blasts, while Yoav Gallant, the defence minister of Israel, declared Hezbollah will pay an “increasing price”.

Sir Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves will not accept free clothing in the future.

Number 10 sources have confirmed that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor will make the change.

It comes after Labour MPs called for Sir Keir to vow to stop taking gifts following days of negative headlines about his use of donations, including for clothes.

The Labour leader and his wife had accepted money from the Labour peer Lord Alli for clothing, with Sir Keir also getting donations for new glasses.

The changed position has been made public just before the Labour Party gathers for its annual conference, which begins in Liverpool on Sunday.

The decision suggests that, despite days of waving away questions about the appropriateness of Sir Keir taking such handouts, Number 10 had concerns about the negative impact the coverage was having.

It appears that the decision is only in relation to clothing, rather than other donations – such as for glasses, football tickets and concert tickets – which have also come under scrutiny.

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A benefits cheat has been ordered to pay back £13,000 after being caught pole-dancing while claiming to be too sick to work.

Angela Elizabeth Clare, 45, accumulated £28,000 in benefits by claiming she needed help to cook and wash because of her poor physical health.

Meanwhile, Clare was posting videos of herself upside down, contorted and performing the splits in pole-dancing classes on social media, while also working as a freelance yoga instructor.

A court heard she also hid a £30,000 postcode lottery win from benefits officials during the same period.

At a hearing at Cardiff Crown Court on Thursday, Clare, from Abersychan, Gwent, was ordered by the judge to pay back £13,176, the sum of her total assets, within three months.

The court heard Clare’s claims in April that she “was unable to cook for herself, needed assistance washing and bathing, and required constant monitoring to take her medication”.

Ross McQuillan-Johnson, prosecuting, said this description was a “marked difference” to videos posted on TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Clare also offered services on a freelance basis as an on-call instructor for yoga classes, charging £60 for a beginner.

The court heard Clare was receiving Personal Independence Payment, Employment and Support Allowance, and housing benefit between 2016 and 2022.

A judge heard the claims were initially genuine – but Clare failed to notify that her health had improved enough to take up pole dancing.

There was a further failure to notify the authorities after she won £30,000 on the Postcode Lottery in 2021. The total amount she claimed illegally came to £28,867 between January 2020 and September 2022.

Clare pleaded guilty to two counts of dishonestly failing to notify the Department of Work and Pensions and Torfaen Council of a change of circumstances.

Adam Sharp, defending, said: “She is utterly ashamed by what she had done.”

But he added she still had underlying and serious medical conditions, including the loss of a breast and the requirement of a stoma bag, as well as long-standing mental health issues.

The court heard she was of previous good character and had made some benefit repayments.

Recorder Robin Rouch sentenced Clare to 18 weeks imprisonment suspended for 12 months and ordered her to attend a 10-day rehabilitation activity.

Charges against four Greenpeace activists who targeted Rishi Sunak’s house in an anti-oil protest have been thrown out by a judge.

Amy Rugg-Easey, 33, Alexandra Wilson, 32, Mathieu Soete, 38, and Michael Grant, 64, had been accused of damaging 15 roof slates during the five-hour demonstration at Mr Sunak’s North Yorkshire mansion last August.

On Thursday, District Judge Adrian Lower ruled that the four activists had no case to answer after they were charged with criminal damage.

The trial started in July, but after the prosecution closed its case, Owen Greenhall, the activists’ defence lawyer, sought to have the case dismissed as it could not be proved the roof damage was caused during the protest.

Giving his ruling on Friday, Judge Lower said he had concluded the evidence against the defendants was “so tenuous” that no court would convict them.

The activists draped Mr Sunak’s house in Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, in black fabric for a stunt. Prosecutors said the former prime minister and Akshata Murty, his wife, were left with a bill of fewer than £3,000 for repairs.

The trial heard that Malcolm Richardson, a foreman and experienced roofer with an ongoing contract to carry out work at the Murty-Sunak house, was called to inspect the roof after a police officer investigating the protest said he believed there had been some damage caused.

Mr Richardson said he was asked to inspect only the area where he was told the protesters had been, and identified 15 tiles that would need to be repaired.

He said in a statement to police that he could tell the damage was recent because of “weathering and colouration”.

Pictures taken by Mr Richardson were used by prosecutors, who said it could be seen “that the location of the damage corresponds to the locations where the defendants went”.

During Mr Richardson’s evidence, it was found that three of the 15 pictures used by the prosecution were actually of the same tile taken from different angles, and some had been taken after Mr Richardson had moved the tiles to carry out the repairs in November.

Mr Greenhall, defending, said there appeared to be cracks in the tiles in parts of the roof where the protesters had not gone.

Applying for the case to be thrown out, Mr Greenhall said the prosecution relied on Mr Richardson’s ability to date the cracks, and that his method was “not that reliable”.

He told the court Mr Richardson was only asked to look in one area when “what should have been done is an examination of the entire roof”.

Roof had ‘pre-existing damage’

Mr Greenhall said: “It’s clear this is a roof where there is pre-existing damage in areas where the protesters did not go. This is not a pristine roof by any means.

“The simple fact that there are cracks in the tiles on the southern elevation by itself cannot be enough to get over the criminal standard that the defendants are responsible for it.”

He told the court that Mr Richardson’s business relationship with the Murty-Sunaks and responsibility for repairs at their house meant he “could not be described as being independent” and that an independent surveyor should have been called in.

During the trial, Scott Hall, the Sunak family’s personal chief of staff, said the property was “well-maintained” and staff “would have been aware of any damage to the roof”.

In cross-examination by Mr Greenhall, he agreed that there did appear to be some cracks in areas of the roof away from the protest that he had not been aware of, and that some of the window frames appeared to have peeling paint.

York magistrates’ court heard Mr Sunak, Ms Murty and their two daughters had left for their summer holiday and were not at home during the protest, but staff at the property were “shocked” to find Greenpeace activists in the grounds on the morning of Aug 3.