In June 1995, a giant statue of Michael Jackson provided a surreal sight in the heart of London when it was floated on a barge down the River Thames.

This 32ft (10m) pop colossus was just one of 10 that appeared around the world to promote the superstar’s album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.

The fibreglass titans then followed Jackson on his global tour.

Thirty years later – and 16 years after his death – the King of Pop continues to attract controversy, but some of the statues still stand defiantly in unexpected corners of the world.

Jackson’s double album was a mix of his greatest hits alongside 15 new tracks including Earth Song, which would spend six weeks at the top of the UK chart.

In America, sculptor Diana Walczak consulted with the pop star to create a clay sculpture that was digitally scanned for the album cover.

Hertfordshire-based artist Stephen Pyle, who had built sets for worldwide productions of The Phantom of the Opera, was asked by a Sony employee called Robbie Williams (not that one) to make 10 huge statues based on this album cover.

He hired sculptor Derek Howarth to craft the statue in polystyrene sections, which Mr Pyle used to make moulds and fibreglass casts.

Everything was assembled in Chris and Liz Clark’s workshop at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, where they were painted to look like stone.

The team worked without access to Ms Walczak’s prototype, which led to them looking slightly different.

Mr Pyle says: “Making 10 statues in four months was quite the challenge, but thanks to Derek, Chris, Liz and the rest of my workshop team at the time, we became quite the efficient factory for Michael Jackson monoliths!”

The fates of some of the statues is uncertain, and they may have been locked in storage or destroyed. But others have remained on show in some unlikely locations.

For many years, a King of Pop monument towered over a McDonald’s car park in the village of Best in the Netherlands.

Restaurant owner Peter Van Gelder bought the statue from Sony at a 1996 charity gala for the Ronald McDonald Children’s Fund.

“The restaurant had just opened and didn’t yet have the big yellow M,” he says. “It was my intention to put it down as an eye-catcher.”

Jackson fans began flocking to the spot, taking photos and playing his music. Crowds became so frequent that Peter had to fence off the statue to stop people climbing on it.

Each year on Jackson’s birthday, and on the day he died, it became a shrine, with fans gathering to play music, hang pictures and leave flowers.

Things changed in 2019 after HBO’s Leaving Neverland documentary levelled new allegations of child sexual abuse against Jackson.

“In the Netherlands there was not such a strong reaction and my intention was to just leave the statue there,” explained Peter.

But he said pressure from the fast food chain’s US headquarters led to its removal and storage in a “secret location”.

McDonald’s tells the BBC: “In 2019, following the documentary, it was decided to remove the statue.

“We felt and feel it is important for all guests to feel comfortable when visiting one of our restaurants.”

Peter hopes to donate the statue to a fan club, but due to its size a building permit is required. “Many have approached me but still no-one has been able to get a permit,” he says.

“The years have passed since his death and I’ve noticed that the interest in the statue is decreasing… So the Michael Jackson statue lies resting under a tarp in an insignificant shed.”

The courtyard of an abandoned club in a small town 18 miles (30km) west of Vienna is not the place you’d expect to find a towering effigy of the King of Pop.

Owner Franz Josef Zika won the statue in 1998 at a radio charity auction in aid of the Red Cross, and spent 150,000 Austrian Schillings (£9,300).

He recalls: “The big problem was when I went home and had to tell my uncle, who was the family boss, and he said, ‘You’re crazy!'”

Visitors to The Baby’O in Judenau-Baumgarten may have been surprised to find Michael Jackson in the smoking area, but Franz saw it as a great way to promote his club.

“There were also many bars next to the statue, so there was a party around Jackson,” he says.

Last year the club was forced to close after a new residential building was built nearby.

Now Franz wants to find somebody to open a small cafe or pizzeria at the venue, but needs to get rid of the pop monolith first.

He said: “I’ve been trying to sell it for two years. I would be happy if I get €25,000 (£21,000) for it.

“I’ve had some interest from Sweden and some in Hungary, but the problem is people don’t have enough money.”

What if he can’t find a buyer? “We don’t know. Maybe I’ll send it to Mars. Elon will do this for me!” he laughs.

For more than 50 years, an annual fairground event called Luna Park has taken place in Lausanne, Switzerland.

It is among these blinking lights and brightly coloured rides that another Jackson statue can be found.

It has been given slight refurbishment, with gold paint added to his faux military uniform.

Organisers tell the BBC they bought it 2008 from a man who had purchased it from Sony years earlier.

The statue has not been displayed for a few years, but they do not say why – however they stress it is not for sale.

When Jackson brought his HIStory tour to South Africa, he had one of the 10 statues with him.

Santarama Miniland, which opened in Johannesburg in the 1970s to showcase the country in miniature, is now abandoned.

Attractions have been removed and the miniature train no longer runs, but a repainted MJ monolith still stands, visible in Google Earth satellite images.

Blogger Heather Mason of 2summers.net visited the park in 2013.

She recalls: “It was quite strange to see a giant blue Michael Jackson statue in the middle of Miniland, where the general theme is for things to be smaller than life, not larger than life.

“But I certainly appreciated it! The MJ statue was the best photo op in the park.”

A fresh coat of paint and new pair of sunglasses have not made this fibreglass figure too unrecognisable.

In June 2019, Europark Idroscalo Milano unveiled the “restored” statue after a Jackson-themed flash mob.

An announcer told the gathered crowd: “This statue is dedicated to all of you, who keep on loving him through the years.”

The dramatic reveal came just months after the Leaving Neverland documentary.

A park spokesperson tells the BBC the statue was purchased at the end of the tour but remained abandoned for many years before ending up in the park.

They said the titan had its face covered for a while following allegations of child abuse because park owners at the time “did not want to show that MJ welcomed children at the park, so it was transformed almost into a robot”.

Despite the work to restore and repaint the statue, the park’s owners have now put the refurbished statue up for sale.

Anyone who has ever tried to get a GP appointment in England will be familiar with the “8am scramble“, as you phone your local surgery desperately hoping to get through.

Many surgeries – like the Tudor House Medical Practice – open their telephone lines at 08:00, meaning that if you want an on-the-day appointment, you have to phone on the dot at 08:00.

This can prove a source of frustration, with Jayne Bond – part of a four-strong team at the increasingly busy practice – often at the sharp end of patients’ upset.

“Some people think we are Rottweilers, and we are trying to stop them getting appointments,” she said.

The practice invited the BBC to watch them at work first thing in the morning during the busiest part of their day, when those phone lines open.

“When the phone lines open, it just goes manic,” fellow receptionist Sandra Brewster said.

She knows the scene at the practice, in Sherwood, is repeated at surgeries across the land when they release their same-day bookable appointments first thing.

“It is mad – we try and grab a cup of tea before the phones open up,” Sandra added.

Often potential patients can get frustrated when receptionists ask for more information.

Jayne, 66, said: “We are on the ball – we have to be.

“Some people think we are nosy, but we are just trying to get them to the right person.”

Eighty per cent of face-to-face GP appointments at the surgery are bookable on the day and released first thing, and typically within half an hour, they are gone.

We observed the pressure on a typical Wednesday morning.

Jayne said: “We normally call it ‘wacky Wednesday’ – it can be a very busy day.”

Only five minutes after the lines open, more than 30 people are queuing to get through.

The telephone system has recently been upgraded, with an option for people to request to be phoned back without the caller losing their place in the queue.

But despite this “improvement”, high demand will mean some inevitably miss out.

Sandra, also 66, admits receptionists can’t always give people they want.

“People have said to me, ‘well if I die it will be your fault’.

“There can be verbal abuse – you just have to go home and forget about it and remember it is the situation, not personal, but they are the calls you remember,” she said.

We observed that 50 people were booked in at the surgery within 25 minutes.

This relentless demand for appointments is a picture repeated across the country, and has seen the government step in earlier this year.

The Labour government had pledged in its manifesto to end the early morning phone “scramble” for appointments, and in February, confirmed a deal to give an extra £889m a year to general practices.

The new contract says patients should be able to arrange appointments online throughout working hours, freeing up the phones for those who need them most, and making it easier for practices to triage patients based on medical need.

Practice manager Tricia Gibbons said patients were “getting more used to not always seeing a GP”.

The 56-year-old said: “When I first started 11 years ago, we only had access to GPs and trainee doctors.”

The surgery now has an expanded team of health professionals to complement the work of family doctors, including an advanced nurse practitioner and a clinical pharmacist, which can see patients.

Tricia stressed, though, that “the doctors are always there to offer back-up”.

“This model is about giving doctors more time to focus on more complex cases,” she said.

“Other members of the team are well placed to deal with the more minor illnesses and ailments.”

Dr Jonathan Lloyd, a GP partner at the surgery, said demand for primary care had gone up hugely since he began working as a doctor almost 30 years ago.

“The number of appointments the average patient has each year has increased, and people have got older, and there are more people with dementia and chronic disease,” he said.

“The number of GPs has not increased at the same rate, so there is more pressure on doctors.”

The 57-year-old said accessing primary care across the country was a “big problem”, but felt most patients were “comfortable” knowing they might not always see a doctor.

He said six out of 10 GP appointments were in person, with the rest on the phone, which “many people are quite happy about”.

“Our patients have control over that – if they want to see me face-to-face, they can,” he added.

Latest annual figures from NHS England show that record numbers of appointments – more than 370 million – were offered by GP surgeries in 2024-25, with almost two-thirds face to face, and the rest virtual.

Four out of 10 appointments at surgeries are with doctors, and the rest with other health professionals.

More than half of appointments were booked at least a day ahead, with the rest on the same day.

Katie Bramall-Stainer, who chairs the British Medical Association GPs’ committee, previously told BBC Breakfast that the new government deal could see patients begin to notice a difference in six to 12 months, but said the overall situation was “nowhere near a solution”.

So for now, the likes of Jayne and Sandra will continue to keep an eye on the clock as 8am approaches.

A flashy tycoon in Zimbabwe has a nation entranced – some beguiled, others alarmed – by his habit of giving away cars along with wads of cash to those he deems patriotic – even presenting them to those he has never met.

Mercedes-Benzes, Toyota SUVs, Range Rovers are Wicknell Chivayo’s vehicles of choice for the recipients, who range from music stars, down-at-heel gospel singers, footballers, church leaders and those loyal to the ruling Zanu-PF party.

The controversial 44-year-old is himself partial to a white Rolls-Royce and has a fleet of personalised luxury cars, some of which he has also started giving away as he gets in newer models.

For years “Sir Wicknell”, as he calls himself, has loved to boast about his riches via Instagram – details the tabloids lap up – but while he is open about how he spends his money, he is less so about how he makes it as he faces scrutiny over the source of his wealth in a country where life is a daily struggle for most people.

In the last year or so his social media account has also been awash with posts about his donations.

They follow a similar pattern: a photo of a gleaming car with balloons tied to it – sometimes with a big bow on its bonnet – is accompanied with a message of congratulations to someone with instructions about where they should collect it, usually from one of various luxury car dealerships he uses in the capital, Harare.

“Please GO AND SEE VICTOR at EXQUISITE MOTORS, your brand new 2025 Range Rover Autobiography is FULLY PAID FOR and ready for collection,” he told top musician Jah Prayzah last month, adding that $150,000 (£111,000) in cash was also awaiting him there.

“This is just a small token of my gratitude for your IMMENSE contribution to Zimbabwean music and your patriotism in uniting thousands of people through music, preaching PEACE, preaching LOVE and preaching UNITY in every song.”

The volume of his “public gifting” has become almost frenzied – he even reposts humorous memes about it. On social media, Zanu-PF accounts have been lavishing him in praise, commending his philanthropy.

In private Sir Wicknell – as everyone knows him – has also dished out houses and study scholarships to followers of his apostolic church, the Zion Christian Church, known for their white garments and worshipping outdoors.

The softly spoken, heavy-set businessman has come to symbolise Zimbabwe’s growing “flex culture” – the desire to flash one’s wealth in person and online.

“$hopping and spending money are just some of my hobbies,” he wrote in 2013, when he first started on Instagram, next to a hotel trolley full of his purchases.

This was followed not long after by the quip: “Damn being rich is a headache at times” and a photo of his vast shoe collection as he tried to decide whether to wear a pair of Louis Vuittons or Salvatore Ferragamos.

And so it has continued, with holidays to Dubai, New York, Paris, London and business trips to Johannesburg, Shanghai and New Delhi – and most recently posts about his new private jet.

He also loves to display his proximity to power – posting photos of himself with politicians, from Zimbabwe’s late President Robert Mugabe and his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa to, more recently, other African leaders such as Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan and Kenya’s William Ruto.

“He is very hands-on with his businesses dealings, very much on the ground and keeping tabs on how every cent is spent,” a businessman, who has previously dealt with Mr Chivayo and asked to remain anonymous, told the BBC.

“It’s clear that he is politically protected,” he said.

In Cry Havoc, the late British mercenary and coup plotter Simon Mann‘s 2011 memoir of his time incarcerated in Zimbabwe’s Chikurubi Maximum Prison, the former British army officer said his “well-educated” fellow inmate Wicknell warned him never to criticise Zanu-PF.

The pair were in the same cell block – Mann serving four years for his role in a failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea in 2004 and Chivayo a couple of years for fraud.

“In Africa the unsolicited gift is massively powerful,” Mann quoted him as saying – a seemingly prophetic comment.

Between them they paid in cigarettes for the services of a prisoner, serving 94 years for armed robbery, to do their laundry. Mann said Chivayo insisted on referring to him as their “butler”.

The two remained friends with Sir Wicknell posting a smiling photo of them together in 2013 – a year that seems to have been a turning point for him.

It was when, as well as taking to Instagram, his company Intratrek Zimbabwe and a Chinese firm won a tender to build a solar power plant worth $172.8m.

But the project later became embroiled in fraud allegations – court records several years later state that Intratrek had been paid an advance to begin work on the 100MW plant in Gwanda but failed to deliver as expected to the state-owned Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC).

He in turn sued ZPC for cancelling its contact over the dispute. He won that case and was later acquitted of all the criminal charges.

Sir Wicknell is media shy, has spoken of his dislike of journalists and politely declined my request for an interview.

But on a rare outing on a breakfast radio show last year, he was asked directly how he made his money.

In bashful tones, he said his main business was government tenders secured with foreign partners in the areas of renewable energy, engineering procurement, construction and power projects. He said he also had businesses in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania.

Late last year, his company IMC Communications was licensed as the partner for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service provider.

On Instagram, he has been much more brash about his “Midas touch” – saying he is a “hustler” who works hard. He also attributes his success as a “self-made millionaire” to his humble background growing up Harare’s satellite township of Chitungwiza, where his family struggled after his father died when he was aged 10.

He tends to repost “throw-back” photos to his late teens when through a family friend he got a job as a wages clerk at a bus company. “I remember I was the only one my age with a cell phone in Chitungwiza,” he has said about his hard-working ethic.

An avowed Zanu-PF supporter he has previously attributed his success to the party’s empowerment policy, which was launched in 2013 and forced all companies to cede economic control to black Zimbabweans.

Some see him as a successful example of this indigenisation policy, creating a new class of black businessmen, but others believe some of his wealth is a result of corruption and murky relationships with those in power – which he vehemently denies.

Questioned in February about Sir Wicknell’s predilection for giving away cars, President Mnangagwa dismissed an accusation that the businessman was acting as his frontman. “Where would I get the money to give him?… You can’t bother me about someone who is philanthropic,” he told journalists.

The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) did launch an inquiry last year after South African investigative non-profit organisation Open Secrets alleged Chivayo had received a windfall of millions of dollars as the facilitator of a tender to supply election materials to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) in 2023.

The scandal ballooned when a leaked audio message purportedly of Mr Chivayo talking about the deal also seemed to implicate two other businessmen by consoling them for failing to get promised kickbacks, suggesting many more deals were in the pipeline as “we have them in vice-like grip”.

The fallout was spectacular. Zec denied any dealings with Mr Chivayo or the other men, all of whom denied the allegations – and a year on ZACC has not charged anyone.

Mr Chivayo said the audio must have been a deep fake, generated through sophisticated technology. He also apologised to the president for any impression the audio may have created that the first family was corrupt.

But not long afterwards, the two businessmen mentioned in the audio were arrested and charged with misappropriating around $7m in a separate case. They deny the accusations, linked to a presidential goat scheme tender, and have spent almost a year in jail waiting for the trial to begin.

This week there has been more hoo-ha about a supposed leak over a document from March about an alleged $500m contract with Mr Chivayo’s name listed as a director of a company to supply cancer treatment equipment to the Zimbabwe government for four years.

The outrage is over the fact that if it is true, it did not go through a public tendering process. The government and Mr Chivayo have dismissed the allegations, pointing out that the so-called contract touted as evidence is unsigned.

“For a whole group of opposition outfits to team up and make noise about an unsigned FAKE document is an embarrassing desperation for political relevance,” Mr Chivayo said.

The father of two, not long remarried at an elaborate wedding ceremony with more than 15,000 guests, has often said he is not interested in becoming a politician.

For him it is all about the money – and he says he is determined to see off his “haters”. Posing by his jet recently, he wore a tracksuit with a giant “B” emblazoned on his tracksuit, saying: “Take note the ‘B’ is the inevitable billionaire status coming my way against all odds.”

But his close ties with power, which have allowed him to become rich, mean he will always fly close to controversy.

In June 2015, John “Goldfinger” Palmer was shot six times in the garden of his secluded woodland mansion in Essex. But due to an oversight in the police response, the 65-year-old’s death was put down to natural causes – until a murder investigation was eventually launched six days later. Ten years on, detectives are still hunting whoever killed the man once described as Britain’s richest criminal.

Palmer earned his nickname following the audacious 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery.

Armed men disguised in security uniforms stumbled upon £26m worth of gold, diamonds and cash in a warehouse just outside London Heathrow Airport.

Jewellery dealer Palmer was accused of melting down the gold in a shed in the garden of his mansion near Bath.

Thirty-two years later, on 24 June 2015, he was gunned down as he was burning documents in the garden of his home in South Weald near Brentwood.

Spanish prosecutors had charged him a month earlier with fraud, firearms possession and money laundering.

At about 17:30 BST, a suspect believed to be a contract killer scaled his garden fence having seemingly watched him through a carved-out spyhole.

Palmer was killed in the only part of the garden not covered by cameras.

He was found unconscious by his son’s girlfriend. Two police officers attended at about 19:20 and had assessed his death as “non-suspicious” on account of an operation wound from recent gall bladder surgery.

A week later, a post-mortem examination revealed he was, in fact, shot in the chest, abdomen, arm, elbow, back and kidneys.

“It’s definitely not something I’m going to hide behind; we did make mistakes,” said Det Supt Stephen Jennings of Essex Police, speaking to the BBC’s Gangster podcast series in 2022.

“We didn’t do enough background checks on John.

“Had we done that, the officers would have realised he had quite a substantial criminal background.

“They didn’t really check the body well enough to discount any third-party involvement.”

Roy Ramm, former commander of specialist operations at New Scotland Yard, said it was a “very serious error”.

“You talk about the golden hour in investigations – that was lost, the day was lost, several days were lost – and I do not envy the senior investigating officer who picked up the case and tried to make progress with it,” he told the BBC.

“It was nigh on impossible.”

The two young police officers later faced disciplinary action.

Born in Solihull near Birmingham, Palmer was one of seven children raised in a poor single-parent household.

He was a serial truant and left school at 15 without learning to read or write.

The teenager worked in roofing but moved on to street trading, which included selling paraffin off the back of a lorry.

Palmer moved to Bedminster in Bristol and made his first £100,000 (£2m in today’s money) from a jewellery business.

He set up Scadlynn, a company trading precious scrap metals.

His business partner Gareth Chappell was later jailed for 10 years for conspiring to handle stolen goods in connection with the Brink’s-Mat raid.

When Palmer was identified as a Brink’s-Mat suspect, he accused the Met Police of “overreacting”.

“I’m completely innocent of anything to do with this so-called ‘Mats-Brink’ bullion raid,” he said, sitting beside a hotel pool in Tenerife in 1985, after being tracked down by BBC war reporter Kate Adie.

He continued to deliberately – or mistakenly – confuse the Brink’s-Mat name when he stood trial at the Old Bailey in 1987, and it worked.

Palmer blew kisses to jurors after they found him not guilty of conspiring to handle stolen gold bullion.

The Brink’s-Mat heist, and the cat-and-mouse chases that followed, have been dramatised in BBC One TV series The Gold.

In the final episode, which aired earlier this month, the fictional detective, played by Hugh Bonneville, signs off with: “It’s Brink’s-Mat – it’s never over.”

Palmer seemed unable to shake off the spectre of the 1983 raid.

Instead of going to ground, Palmer became one of the biggest landowners in Tenerife.

Mr Ramm, who oversaw investigations into Palmer and the laundering of the Brink’s-Mat gold in the 1990s, said his team was “convinced” he invested earnings from the robbery into the island.

He amassed an estimated fortune of £300m which he used to buy a West Country mansion, a French chateau with its own golf course, a jet, turboprop-powered helicopters, a £750,000 yacht, and a classic car collection including Porsches and Ferraris.

He and Elizabeth II were jointly ranked 105th in the Sunday Times Rich List.

But prosecutors accused him of masterminding a timeshare fraud which involved 16,000 victims who were scammed out of more than £45m.

Jurors found him guilty of conspiracy to defraud at the Old Bailey and he was jailed for eight years in 2001.

David Farrer KC, the lead prosecution counsel, described Palmer as the “biggest shark” in the timeshare waters – a quote that was rekindled for the final episode of The Gold.

Because Palmer defended himself, Mr Farrer spent hours liaising with his opposite number in private.

“He could be quite pleasant and charming,” said the retired barrister.

“That was invariably when he thought the case was going well for him. I’ve no doubt whatever of his potential violence.

“If I had been anything other than prosecuting counsel he would have clouted me a few times.”

Mr Farrer recalled how during the trial, Palmer wore body armour and was shadowed by Special Branch officers because they were concerned a north London gang had put a contract out on him because he owed them money.

Palmer served half his sentence, and in 2009, he moved in with partner Christina Ketley and their son at South Weald.

Speaking to the BBC’s Crimewatch in 2016, Det Supt Jennings said the Spanish fraud prosecution – announced at the end of May 2015 – was the most likely motive for his murder.

This was complicated when considering his links to the men behind the Hatton Garden heist of April 2015, the detective said, and because of recent “law enforcement intervention with organised crime families”.

“It was an opportunity for any one of those individuals at any subsequent trial to blame John for what took place and obviously he would not be in a position to answer that or refute it,” said Det Supt Jennings.

On the evening Essex Police revealed Palmer was murdered, Mr Farrer received an unexpected call from a Scotland Yard detective he had worked with more than 13 years earlier.

“I asked him, was it the Russians who did it?” Mr Farrer recalled.

“He said they thought it was much more likely this gang in north London, the Adams, and they certainly didn’t think that it was directly anything to do with timeshare – in other words, the same people that caused Palmer to wear body armour during his trial.”

The Mail on Sunday singled out the Adams crime family as the brains behind the killing in a 2016 article.

Patrick “Patsy” Adams, of Finsbury, north London, was jailed later that year for shooting an associate, and other members of the syndicate have received prison time in recent years.

Robert McCunn is more open-minded.

The veteran lawyer led civil action against Palmer in the mid-1990s on behalf of insurers acting for the Brink’s-Mat business.

“It could be linked to any number of activities he was known to be involved with,” he told the BBC.

A £100,000 reward was put up by Palmer’s family and charity Crimestoppers in 2018 for information leading to a conviction – but that reward has expired.

Mr Ramm said: “It is particularly important that this murder continues to be investigated because of who Palmer was, the role he played in the network of serious and organised criminals in the UK, in Spain – internationally.

“He offended and upset some very, very, dangerous people, and we need to know who they were.”

Palmer always maintained he did not know he had melted Brink’s-Mat gold.

Ms Ketley was due to stand trial in Madrid in 2019 in connection with the timeshare fraud, but the case against her was dropped. Other individuals were found guilty.

“Without doubt [Palmer] has made mistakes in his life; I believe he has paid for those mistakes,” Ms Ketley told BBC Crimewatch.

“I was incredibly proud of the way he adjusted to a very normal life.”

She still owns the gated woodland property where Palmer was murdered. She did not respond to the BBC’s approach for comment.

A 43-year-old man from Rugby, Warwickshire, was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder in 2015, but was released without charge.

In February 2017, detectives said a 50-year-old man from Tyneside, who lived in southern Spain, was questioned on suspicion of murder in what was a voluntary interview. He faced no further action.

Essex Police says it has taken hundreds of witness statements, pursued hundreds of lines of inquiries and examined thousands of pieces of evidence.

Regarding the failures on the day Palmer was murdered, a force spokesperson said on Friday: “It is always best to secure and preserve crime scenes as soon as possible to achieve the best forensic evidence and regrettably that was not the case in this incident.

“However, outdoor crime scenes by their very nature have less forensic opportunities.

“We believe this murder was a professional contract killing and our experiences of similar cases such as this are that these types of murderers are forensically aware, limiting our opportunity to secure evidence.”

Mr Ramm thinks detectives will need an organised criminal to hand over key information as “leverage”.

“I think that’s probably the only way it’s going to be solved – someone on the inside becomes an informer.”

As Benjamin Netanyahu stood at the podium in the Israeli prime minister’s office this morning, he did not at first address the Israeli people in Hebrew, to update them on the latest, dramatic development in this, his latest war.

Instead he spoke in English, speaking directly to, and lavishing praise upon, US President Donald Trump after the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites.

If Netanyahu’s tone was triumphant, and the smile barely suppressed, it is hardly surprising. He has spent most of his political career obsessed with the threat he believes Iran poses to Israel.

Netanyahu has spent much of the last 15 years attempting to persuade his American allies that only military action (and only American munitions) could destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

While congratulating Trump for a bold decision that “will change history”, Netanyahu can also congratulate himself on changing the mind of a US president who campaigned against overseas military adventures, and whose supporters were overwhelmingly opposed to joining Israel’s war against Iran.

It should also be noted that Trump’s own intelligence agencies had not shared Israel’s assessment of how quickly Iran could seek to build a nuclear weapon, nor indeed whether it had taken the decision to do so.

Throughout this conflict, which began just 10 days ago, Israel’s government and military have insisted that Israel had the capacity to deal with the Iranian threat on its own.

But it was no secret that only America possessed the massive ordnance capable of dealing with the strongest levels of protection around Iran’s nuclear facilities, particularly at Fordo, built deep inside a mountain.

If the nuclear sites bombed last night are now indeed out of use then Israel’s prime minister will be able to declare his main war aim complete, perhaps bringing this conflict closer to an end. For its part, Iran says it had already moved its nuclear material out.

But without last night’s bombing, Israel would have continued working its way down the long list of targets its air force has spent years drawing up.

Damage would continue to have been inflicted on the Iranian military, on its commanders, on nuclear scientists, on government infrastructure and on the parts of the nuclear programme accessible to Israel’s bombs.

But Netanyahu may have been denied a clear point at which Israel could say the nuclear threat had been definitively neutralised. Perhaps only regime change in Iran could have delivered that moment.

The B2 bombers have undoubtedly changed the trajectory of the war. Whether it escalates even further will depend on how Iran and its allies respond.

Last week Iran’s supreme leader had vowed to hit back at the US were it to enter the war. “The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.

Only on Saturday the Houthi group in Yemen – staunch Iranian allies – had threatened to attack US ships transiting through the Red Sea if America entered the war.

American military personnel, businesses, and citizens in the region are now potential targets. Iran can strike back in multiple ways, should it so chose, attacking US warships, or bases in the Gulf, and potentially disrupting the flow of oil from the Gulf, and sending the price of petrol soaring.

The US has signalled that, for now, its military action is over, and it has no interest in bringing down the government in Tehran.

That may encourage Iran to limit its response, perhaps attacking US targets in ways that do not lead to high casualties, or using proxies in the region to do the same.

Iran chose to follow this course after Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader Qasem Soleimani in 2020. On Saturday night, the US president repeated his own threat to Iran, to use overwhelming force to counter any retaliation.

This morning the whole of the Middle East is holding its breath, waiting to see whether this marks the beginning of the end of this conflict, or the beginning of an even more deadly phase to the war.

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Ukraine’s top military commander says its forces are still defending a small area of territory inside Russia that it captured almost a year ago.

In August 2024 Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into the Kursk region, capturing more than 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of Russian land.

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said 10,000 Russian troops are attempting to drive his forces back.

While Russia has repeatedly insisted it had recaptured the entire region, Syrsky said on Sunday that Ukraine is still holding around 90 sq km (56 sq miles) in the Kursk region.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Syrsky vowed to increase the “scale and depth” of strikes on Russia.

“Of course, we will continue,” he said.

“Given that we are not fighting against the population, we are fighting and destroying purely military targets.”

Ukraine seized dozens of villages in the Kursk region shortly after its incursion started on 6 August 2024.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Kursk operation established a buffer zone which prevented Russian forces from being deployed in key areas of the front in eastern Ukraine.

But, Kyiv’s advances stalled after Russia rushed reinforcements to the area – including thousands of troops from its ally North Korea.

In recent months Ukrainian forces have been in retreat in Kursk after facing 70,000 Russian troops and heavy drone attacks as part of Moscow’s drive to regain the territory.

Last autumn, North Korea sent an estimated 11,000 troops to Kursk to fight off the Ukrainian cross-border incursion.

Western officials told the BBC in January that at least 1,000 North Korean troops in Russia had been killed in just three months.

Earlier this month, the government in Pyongyang promised to send thousands of mine-clearing troops and builders to Russia’s Kursk region to restore damaged infrastructure.

Campaigners have urged the government to step in to protect the future of Notting Hill Carnival as they mark Windrush Day.

The west London carnival is in jeopardy, its chairman Ian Comfort said in a letter leaked to the BBC on Wednesday, in which he asked Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy to provide “urgent funding” for public safety measures.

While the government acknowledged the significance of the event, it stopped short of offering financial backing and urged organisers to work with local authorities and the police.

Jacqueline McKenzie, a campaigner and human rights lawyer who helped victims of the Windrush scandal, said the carnival held “huge national and international significance”.

“The government needs to recognise this and act urgently to protect it,” Ms McKenzie said.

By the late 1950s, Notting Hill had became home to many people from the Caribbean who arrived in Britain on HMT Empire Windrush and accompanying ships, and the carnival was founded by pioneers of that generation.

Ms McKenzie said the carnival being at risk “adds insult to injury” for victims of the Windrush scandal, in which thousands of British people, mainly of Caribbean origin, were wrongly classed as illegal immigrants.

Many were deported while others faced difficulty securing work, accessing healthcare or housing.

“It should not be lost on us that these funding concerns coincide with Windrush Day on Sunday,” she said.

“To see this celebration in jeopardy whilst so many of the Windrush generation continue to fight for justice following the Home Office scandal only adds insult to injury.

“Carnival embodies the fundamental role of Black and Caribbean communities in Britain, and the government should be upholding the Windrush legacy instead of undermining it.”

The carnival, which attracts around two million people over the August bank holiday weekend, has caused concern to the Metropolitan Police over the potential for a “mass casualty event”.

On Thursday, London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan said the risk of a crowd crush at Notting Hill Carnival “made me frightened”.

He also backed calls for the government to step in as the current funding provided by City Hall and two councils was the maximum possible.

A City Hall spokesperson said it has been working with partners to ensure the safety of carnival-goers, which it described as “paramount”.

Patrick Vernon, a cultural historian and Windrush campaigner, said: “Notting Hill Carnival is far more than a street event – it is a vital cultural institution with both national and international significance.

“As the second-largest carnival in the world, second only to Rio de Janeiro, it underscores London’s position as a leading global capital of diversity, creativity and cultural exchange.”

Mr Vernon campaigned for a national Windrush Day following the Home Office scandal in 2018.

“The injustice faced by the Windrush Generation in recent years makes the threat to Notting Hill Carnival all the more painful,” Mr Vernon said.

He added that the carnival represented the “best of Britain”, with “unity in diversity, creativity in adversity, and joy in community”.

Glenda Caesar, director of the Windrush National Organisation, also urged the government to step in to save the event.

“In the face of historical and ongoing injustices experienced by people of colour, the carnival stands not only as a celebration of resilience, heritage and identity but also as a powerful symbol of unity and inclusion,” she said.

A government spokesman said: “Notting Hill Carnival is an important community event, and we recognise that for many it is a moment to come together and celebrate.

“We all want this to go ahead, and event organisers should work with local authorities and the police to keep it safe for everyone attending.”

The bodies of three Israeli hostages have been recovered from the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.

He confirmed that Yonatan Samrano, Ofra Kedar and Staff Sgt Shai Levinson’s remains were retrieved on Saturday in a military operation.

“I thank our commanders and fighters for a successful operation, for their determination and courage,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have recovered the bodies of eight hostages from Gaza so far this month.

“The campaign to return the abductees continues continuously and is taking place in parallel with the campaign against Iran,” Netanyahu said.

“We will not rest until we return all of our abductees home – both the living and the dead.”

The IDF said the bodies were recovered on Saturday, but did not say where in the Gaza Strip the remains were found.

Ms Keidar was 71 when she was killed at a kibbutz and her body taken into Gaza.

Staff Sgt Levinson “engaged and fought terrorists on the morning of 7 October and fell in combat,” the IDF said. He was 19 at the time of his death.

Earlier on Sunday, Mr Samerano’s father announced that his son’s body had been recovered by the Israeli army.

Posting on Instagram Kobi Samerano wrote: “Yesterday was Yonati’s Hebrew birthday. On his 23rd birthday, on the very day he was born, our Yonati was rescued in a heroic operation by the brave soldiers of the IDF and the Shin Bet.”

In a statement following the announcement, Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents some of the hostages’ relatives, said: “Our hearts are with the Keidar, Samerano, and Levinson families today.

“Alongside the grief and pain, their return provides some comfort to the families who have waited in agony, uncertainty, and doubt for 625 days.

“Particularly against the backdrop of current military developments and the significant achievements in Iran, we want to emphasize that bringing back the remaining 50 hostages is the key to achieving complete Israeli victory.

“There will be no victory until the last hostage returns.”

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led cross-border attack on 7 October 2023 in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,677 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Some 54 of those captured during the attack by Hamas remain in captivity, including 31 the Israeli military says are dead.

The UK government is organising a chartered flight to take British nationals out of Israel next week.

Britons are being asked to register interest in the flight via online forms but have been told not to travel to the airport unless told to do so.

Over the past week the government has been working with Israeli authorities on plans to arrange flights out of the country and Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The latest announcement comes after the US launched strikes at nuclear facilities in Iran overnight amid an escalation in tensions between Israel and Iran.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has advised against all travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The FCDO said further flights would be considered depending on demand and the latest security situation but added the volatility of the situation meant the ability to run flights “could change at short notice”.

British nationals and non-British immediate family members travelling with them are eligible for a seat, but places on the flight from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport will be allocated according to need.

On X, the FCDO said the flight would be for “vulnerable British nationals and their dependents”.

Passengers will need the necessary travel documents and visas.

A spokesperson said: “The safety of British Nationals in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories continues to be our utmost priority – that’s why the UK government is preparing flights to help those wanting to leave.”

On June 15, the FCDO changed its travel advice to warn against all travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, having previously told Britons to avoid “all travel to parts of Israel”.

This followed an escalation in military activity in the region after Israel launched attacks on Iranian military infrastructure and nuclear sites.

The US said it launched strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran on Saturday night.

While the UK said it did not participate, minister Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC they had been informed in advance about the plan.

Other countries have been organising their own evacuation plans for their citizens.

India said on Thursday it planned to evacuate all Indian nationals who wished to leave, firstly by land and then air, while the US ambassador to Israel said on Saturday that America had begun assisted departure flights.

The Chinese ambassador to Israel said in a media interview around 400 of China’s citizens had been evacuated as of Saturday, including students. The country has also been evacuating from Iran.

Austria’s foreign ministry said in its latest statement around 120 people, including citizens of partner countries, have been evacuated from Iran and Israel.

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