Captain Serhiy Muzyka, who started his career in the Soviet army, never dreamt that his final deployment before heading into retirement after 43 years piloting helicopters would be play out like a Tom Cruise movie.

The 60-year-old Ukrainian ended up in a terrifying and deadly situation in South Sudan when what seemed like a routine operation for the UN earlier this month turned into the most dramatic of his career.

During his military service – that included 20 years in the Ukrainian army – he served in Afghanistan and other dangerous places. He also encountered other danger zones during his work as a private contractor, including rescuing victims of a plane crash in Somalia in 2015.

But the mission to evacuate wounded soldiers from a military base in Nasir in South Sudan’s northern state of Upper Nile is his most memorable.

A shoot-out at the base after they arrived ended up claiming the lives of a crew member and those of more than two dozen South Sudanese soldiers on the ground.

He himself was shot in arm, miraculously managing to lift off and steer the damaged helicopter to safety.

A little clip he filmed on his phone from inside the cockpit showed him bloody, the nearby controls covered in blood and the windscreen shattered as he and his co-pilot flew low over scrubland for nearly an hour to the nearest airport.

It was “like a movie”, he admitted to the BBC – clearly still shaken by events.

“I thought it happened in a dream,” added the pilot, who worked for a firm called Ukrainian Helicopters.

On the day of the shoot-out, the company had been contracted by the UN Mission in South Sudan to evacuate six injured soldiers, one of whom was a general, along with two of its negotiators.

UN peacekeepers are there trying to safeguard a peace deal that is fraying at the edges, with warnings the world’s newest country is about to plunge into another civil war.

The first one that erupted three years after independence lasted five years and killed nearly 400,000 people.

It pitted President Salva Kiir against Vice-President Riek Machar – with each garnering support from their respective ethnic groups.

The pair agreed to end the war in 2018 – and one of the aims of their power-sharing deal was to join their rival forces and create a unified military.

But recent clashes in Nasir county reveal the distrust over the slow progress on this.

The region is where a militia, known as the White Army, is based – its recruits fought in support of Machar during the civil war.

Communities there distrust regular army troops seen as loyal to Kiir and have been calling for the deployment of the unified force.

But last month, more regular army soldiers were sent to the area – a move Machar said was a violation of the ceasefire and transitional deal – and tensions flared.

Kiir’s side said the decision was a routine troop rotation, but the situation deteriorated rapidly when the White Army seized the army base on 4 March.

This is when Captain Muzyka and his team were called on to fly out trapped soldiers.

They had already done one trip – on 6 March – successfully extracting 10 people after landing at a designated point for the UN to use.

The next day they returned – and all was going according to plan until the passengers began to board.

Firing started and in the confusion it was difficult to tell what was going on.

The first Capt Muzyka knew something was seriously wrong was when he saw blood oozing from his left arm.

Then his flight attendant Sergii Prykhodko – who was standing in front of the chief UN negotiator – was shot.

Capt Muzyka knew they were under attack, and his military training kicked in: “Shooting started from the front and right and then from the left back. I decided immediately to perform take-off.”

As he lifted up he said he saw soldiers falling to the ground outside the aircraft.

“I couldn’t say exactly what time we spent [between the start of gunfire and taking off] – maybe a tiny part of a second.”

The frame of the helicopter continued to be hit as it became airborne, the fuel tanks were punctured.

They needed to get to the airport in the regional capital, Malakal, which was an hour away, and things were not looking good in the cockpit.

“Some systems were damaged – like the main gearbox,” he said.

The possibility of crashlanding was ever-present during the flight. So Capt Muzyka decided to fly as fast and as low as he could.

“The temperature of the oil was [at] critical – maximum, and I flew 100m [328ft] above ground level.”

That way, as per his calculations, he could perform an emergency landing within 20 seconds.

He also asked his crew to be on the lookout for clearings – free from trees and bushes – just in case one was needed.

In the meantime, the flight engineer stopped the bleeding on the captain’s arm by using his shirt as a torniquet.

In the video clip the torn shirt can be seen tied just above an elbow – blood was on his lower arm, trousers and spattered by his seat.

The footage also shows a trickle of clotting blood on his forehead before panning to the shirtless crew member and co-pilot, who had also been in injured.

He was experiencing pain in his right side, said Captain Muzyka.

“Fortunately, it was a small injury from plastic splinters from the right window.”

As they finally approached Malakal airport, they experienced more difficulty. The front wheel of the helicopter was blocked having taken a hit during the attack.

Nevertheless, Captain Muzyka managed to land successfully 49 minutes after taking off under fire and with more than 20 gunshot holes on its body.

“It was a big relief,” he told the BBC.

It was at that point that he felt some pain from his injury. It was so surreal he thought “maybe I’m sleeping”.

During his time as a military pilot, he said he had only ever come under attack once – in Afghanistan in 1987: “I saw a couple of bullets which came through my blades during a night flight. And that’s all.”

The crew and passengers were given medical attention as soon as they got to Malakal.

However, it was not possible to save 41-year-old Mr Prykhodko, who had died of his injuries.

“We couldn’t believe it,” said the captain.

Later the Ukrainian Helicopters crew were feted at a ceremony where they were awarded the UN medal of honour. The UN head of mission said the attack “may constitute a war crime under international law”.

It has been tough for the crew to accept the loss of their colleague – and the incident has all added to their worries about relatives back home who are under attack by Russian forces.

Capt Muzyka has now gone back to Ukraine for treatment and to see his family.

He hopes for the future that “common sense will prevail in the world”, and while he knows retirement is on the cards, he still feels young “because I can fly”.

Criminology student Nasen Saadi has been jailed for life with a minimum of 39 years for the murder of Amie Gray and the attempted murder of Leanne Miles on a Dorset beach.

The BBC explores how police put him behind bars despite having no DNA evidence.

It was a Friday night and the beach in Bournemouth was illuminated by a Blood Moon.

Amateur photographer Mick Priddle was standing on a cliff marvelling at the sky when he heard two loud screams from the sand below.

He was about to become the key witness in a murder investigation.

It would prove to be the most challenging case Det Insp Mark Jenkins had ever been in charge of.

Just before midnight on 24 May 2024, friends Amie Gray and Leanne Miles had lit a fire and were chatting on Durley Chine Beach.

After lurking on the promenade, a hooded man stepped on to the sand, repeatedly stabbed them and fled into the darkness, leaving the women to bleed to death.

Ms Miles, 38, managed to call 999 and was rushed to hospital with 20 knife wounds, mainly to her back.

But 34-year-old Ms Gray, who had been stabbed 10 times, died on the sand from a wound to her heart.

Det Insp Jenkins, of Dorset Police’s major crime investigation team, said Ms Miles had given a good description of the stranger who had attacked them.

But proving who did it was going to be difficult.

He had left no forensic evidence behind.

While crime scene investigators were meticulously searching the area for fingerprints and DNA – and coming up dry – officers were reviewing the promenade’s CCTV.

A camera had recorded the brutal attack.

The man was seen sprinting away towards Bournemouth pier and the zig-zag – a path leading up the cliff to West Hill Garden where there were no cameras.

“That’s what I’d refer to as a pinch-point,” said Det Insp Jenkins: “I knew there was only one way from that point up the cliff.”

The footage was distant and grainy, he said, but it was enough to identify some distinctive clothing.

“There was a grey stripe across his jacket, which was black, he had what’s been described as a bumbag with a reflective logo, and there was a strap that was hanging down on his left-hand side.”

It took three days for police to identify their suspect.

Det Sgt Sarah Gedge was part of the police team tasked with combing through thousands of hours of CCTV footage.

The breakthrough came when they spotted the suspect in daylight, on the morning of the murder, on West Hill Road.

“That was our eureka moment,” Det Sgt Gedge said.

Using footage from nearby cameras they followed his movements into a convenience store.

He used his own bank card to pay for his shopping, making it easy for police to find out his name and address.

The suspect, then 20-year-old Nasen Saadi, was traced to his aunt’s house in Croydon where he was arrested on 28 May.

Police discovered he had travelled to Bournemouth on 21 May to stay at the Travelodge hotel, before carrying out several checks of the area.

He moved to the Silver How Hotel, which was slightly closer to the crime scene, the night before the attack.

In a police interview, Saadi said he had been visiting the seaside town on a solo trip, but denied being the man in the CCTV footage.

Detectives asked him what he had done after checking out of the Travelodge.

Saadi responded: “I can’t remember, maybe sleepwalking… I probably blacked out,” and said his next memory was being at home in Croydon on 25 May.

A deeper look into Saadi’s background all but confirmed the force’s suspicions.

His internet history revealed searches for “How sharp are kitchen knives”, “Why is it harder for a criminal to be caught if he does it in another town” and “What hotels don’t have CCTV in UK”.

Just days before the murder, he had looked up “Bournemouth CCTV” and “Bournemouth pier CCTV”.

Several purchases of knives had also been made online, and officers found knives, latex gloves and a balaclava at his home in Purley.

But police were only able to access “limited information” from his phone because he refused to give them his password, an offence he later pleaded guilty to.

And still they found no weapon or clothing from the night of the killing.

Investigators discovered Saadi had an interest in true crime and was studying criminology and criminal psychology at the University of Greenwich.

He had asked lecturer Dr Lisa-Maria Reiss about pleading self-defence to murder and DNA evidence during a seminar which had not covered these topics.

She replied: “You’re not planning a murder, are you?”

Dr Reiss’ partner, special officer Pavandeep Singh Aneja, was asked to give a talk to students on policing the previous November.

He said Saadi had also asked questions “on DNA, how to get away with murder, these types of things”.

Despite building up a detailed picture of Saadi’s background, and his movements in Bournemouth, police still had no DNA evidence or a murder weapon to link him to the attack.

“I would have expected there to have been blood on his clothes but we never recovered the jacket, the bumbag, the gloves he was wearing, the knife and the footwear,” Det Insp Jenkins recalled.

“We really did try very, very, hard and left no stone unturned – literally.”

They needed a witness who could place Saadi at the scene of the murder.

Mick Priddle, who was used to hearing noise and excitement coming from the beach, had not realised the screams he heard that evening were of fear.

Days later, the 79-year-old photographer was flicking through a local newspaper when he saw a police appeal, featuring CCTV images of the murder suspect.

His said his mind immediately went to that night at West Cliff Garden, and that he was “100% sure” that Saadi had walked right past him.

“I said to myself immediately: ‘That’s him’,” he told the BBC.

As he made his way home from the clifftop in Bournemouth, Mr Priddle said he saw a man appearing from steps leading up from the beach.

He described him as “menacing”, wearing a coat with a distinctive marking across the chest.

“He did turn around and as he did so he was under the street lamp and the hood moved and I got a very good view of his face.”

Mr Priddle was able to identify Saadi as the man he saw from a selection of photographs given to him by police, and later gave evidence in court.

“He just looked evil,” he said.

Det Insp Jenkins said he played an important part in securing the conviction against Saadi.

“I am thankful in some respects that my hobby bought me to the cliff,” Mr Priddle added.

Saadi was charged with the murder of Ms Gray and the attempted murder of Ms Miles a week after the attack.

He denied the charges but chose not to give evidence during the nine-day trial at Winchester Crown Court.

The jury found him guilty of both counts and he has since begun his life sentence behind bars.

It was a successful outcome for Dorset Police, who had worked around the clock to track Saadi down.

Det Insp Jenkins told the BBC he was hugely proud of his 150-strong team.

He described Ms Gray’s injuries as catastrophic, adding Saadi had “clearly been determined”.

“They were doing nothing wrong, Amie and Leanne were sitting on the beach enjoying a May evening in front of a fire, talking quietly with nobody around.

“And I think that’s possibly why they were selected by him,” he said.

“We’ve never really been able to hear from him as to what his motive was.

“It makes it hard to explain to Amie’s family and to Leanne why this happened because I don’t have any answers.”

Clearer advice is needed on how to make campuses inclusive without falling foul of free speech regulations, the National Union of Students (NUS) has said.

The body representing university students has expressed concern after the University of Sussex was fined £585,000 by the Office for Students (OfS) this week for failing to uphold free speech – the first case of its kind.

The higher education regulator launched an investigation back in 2021 when Professor Kathleen Stock left the university. She had faced protests after saying that biological sex was more important than gender identity.

According to the OfS, the university’s policy statement on trans and non-binary equality, including a requirement to “positively represent trans people”, might have lead to staff and students preventing themselves from voicing opposing views.

That has triggered not only the threat of a court showdown, after the university vowed to challenge the OfS’s findings, but also put universities across the UK on alert over further free speech-related fines – and leaving some fearing a catch-22 situation.

Universities in England are asking for clarity behind the scenes on how to protect their students from abuse and harassment because the regulator hasn’t spelt out what is acceptable.

The regulator told the BBC it would be writing to a handful of institutions to remind them of their duty to protect free speech. Arif Ahmed, from the OfS, warned the University of Sussex fine could have been as high as £3.7m and there was “potential for higher fines in the future”.

Commenting for the first time since the fine was issued to Sussex, the NUS said it was concerned about the size of the fine at a time when university finances are under pressure.

Its vice president for liberation and equality Saranya Thambirajah said it was important universities were welcoming places for all marginalised groups of students – and suggested the money could have gone towards improving student welfare instead.

She told the BBC it’s “really unclear” where the OfS is drawing the line on what is or isn’t acceptable.

“We would say at the NUS, that the line between freedom of harm and freedom of speech right now is not falling in the right place, or at the very least, there is very little clarity from the regulator as to where that line should be falling,” she said.

The OfS has said it should be possible to express any lawful view on campus – but the trans and non-binary equality policy at the heart of the Sussex row, which was in place until last year, illustrates the potential challenges ahead.

One of the concerns raised by the regulator was a section in the policy which said that harassment or bullying including intrusive behaviour, name calling or derogatory jokes were serious disciplinary offences.

Now, the university has replaced it with a new trans and non-binary policy – but the regulator hasn’t told bosses yet whether or not that passes the free-speech test.

And in another potential point of tension, from 1 August a new regulation comes into force requiring universities in England to go further in showing how they will promote and uphold free speech on campus.

The OfS says this shouldn’t include the content of courses or discussions in the lecture hall. All higher education institutions have to meet conditions to register with the OfS in order to charge tuition fees.

But they will also have to show how they are acting to prevent the harassment of students – and universities are required to try to increase applications from underrepresented groups, through initiatives to make them feel more included.

Lawyer Smita Jamdar, who advises universities in England on how to comply with regulations, says that to reduce harassment, universities need to be “really clear about the behaviour you will and will not tolerate” and that action will be taken when students “transgress those boundaries”.

While that has to be balanced against freedom of speech, Ms Jamdar said most people would expect “the line to be drawn somewhere other than name calling and derogatory jokes”.

When the BBC looked at similar trans equality policies at a number of universities it wasn’t entirely clear whether they would be considered a challenge to free speech.

Of course, the implications of the Sussex fine for universities across the country straddle many other free speech debates and groups of students, including all the potential flashpoints of race, religion, ethnicity and conflict which sometimes play out on university campuses.

The impacts of the Sussex fine are unlikely to go away any time soon, with vice-chancellors and students alike calling for more clarity.

One of those major tests would be if University of Sussex’s vice-chancellor, Prof Sasha Roseneil, gets her day in court. The university has confirmed it will seek a review by a senior judge of the inquiry.

If the Sussex case gets debated in court, plenty of people on other campuses would be listening closely.

Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world but, by the admission of some of its own volunteer editors, it suffers from a persistent problem – terrible pictures, particularly of celebrities.

It is so full of notable people with very old or unflattering photographs that there are even Instagram accounts dedicated to the very worst ones.

The problem arises because professional photographers who attend, for example, film premieres tend to work for big agencies: their work is copyrighted and you usually need to pay to reproduce it.

Wikipedia – which is largely sustained by volunteers – does not have a budget for that.

Some enthusiasts launched WikiPortraits, a project to recruit a group of volunteer photographers around the world and get them accreditation to attend film festivals, conferences and other events.

“Wikipedia has for the longest time had missing or poor quality photos of people,” said Kevin Payravi, one of the project’s founders.

“This issue has always been in the back of our minds as Wikipedia editors.”

He spoke to the BBC from Austin, Texas where he and fellow founder Jennifer Lee were covering the SXSW festival, complete with their own photo booth for set-up portraits.

“Some people are super bothered by the terrible photos on Wikipedia, and want to save the world from them as well,” Ms Lee said.

“The bad photos are so funny – there are some amazing blobs of humans there.”

Wikipedia has strict rules for photography and copyright, so the pictures uploaded must be a contributor’s own, freely licenced or in the public domain.

As a result it contains many images added by enthusiasts rather than taken by photographers.

In some cases that merely means a non-descript image – but sometimes they are much worse than that.

A prime example: the comedian Emil Wakim, of Saturday Night Live fame.

For a week last November, the photo above – apparently taken at a stand-up show in New York – was his Wikipedia picture.

When it was removed, an editor noted “having no picture is better than what’s currently there”.

The photo of the English footballer Kyle Bartley, taken in 2011, has also been highlighted by social media users as evidence of Wikipedia’s picture problem.

WikiPortraits started its work at the beginning of 2024.

The photographers are not paid and most are based in the US, but there are volunteers across the world.

Jennifer and Kevin say their photographers tend to be Wikipedia enthusiasts, photography hobbyists, and professionals keen to build their portfolios.

So far, 55 of them have done work for WikiPortraits, or are committed to doing so.

Bryan Berlin is one of the photographers. A high school photography teacher and stand-up comedian from New York, he first got involved with WikiPortraits while he was performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

He has attended the New York Film Festival and Sundance, and took pictures of Kieran Culkin and Mikey Madison.

He says he is motivated by improving the service Wikipedia offers.

“Having a better photo of someone gives better information for somebody who is accessing Wikipedia,” he told the BBC.

He might not be paid but Bryan feels there is something in it for him too, saying working on the red carpet has made him a better photographer.

One of his favourite experiences with a celebrity was with Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood.

“He was just such a kind person, and said it was so cool that we were doing this.”

The Edinburgh festival, Cannes and the Nobel prizes are some of the events covered so far, and the project says its photographs are viewed around 100 million times a month.

Some of the biggest names in entertainment now have a WikiPortraits image as their Wikipedia picture.

While those pictures attract attention, the project is also proud to have taken photos of people, such as under-represented filmmakers, who had no Wikipedia picture at all.

Frank Sun is a filmmaker and cinematography who does photography as a hobby. His work on WikiPortraits includes pictures of Florence Pugh and Ben Stiller.

Also based in New York, he has taken pictures at Cannes, Sundance, and the Toronto film festivals.

He fondly remembers an experience with Laetitia Dosch, the French actress, writer and director.

“She said ‘my photo is terrible, it is from years ago. I am so excited to update as any time people search for me, it is an old photo’.

“I think she was pleased.”

What does the future look like? WikiPortraits hopes to attract more photographers from around the world to cover events in their countries.

While sports photography is being featured, there are no plans for video.

The glitz and glamour of the red carpet will always be a draw.

“Our dream is to get credentials for the Met Gala and the Oscars,” said Jennifer Lee.

“That’s when we know we’ve made it.”

Of all the bizarre items up for sale on Facebook marketplace, a “townhouse” with a price of £70,000 stands out as a particularly unusual listing – not least because the property is an old public toilet.

A creative with a vision might see a bright future for the derelict Sheffield loo, similar to others which have become living spaces, galleries and breweries.

Laura Jane Clark, an architect from London, turned an initially “disgusting” abandoned underground restroom in Crystal Palace in London into a home.

“My first though was an art gallery or bar, but then I realised actually, we could live under here,” she said.

“Having persuaded the council to sell them to me for a business, I had to go back and ask to live in them – I think they were just trying to get rid of me, and they said yes.”

Ms Clark, who now lives in Glasgow, went through almost seven years of back-and-forth with the council, determined to stop the loos from being filled in with concrete.

“Luckily people saw my vision and saw the potential,” she said.

“It was quite an undertaking. I was there from dusk every day working as a labourer, taking skips of concrete up to the pavement.

“People were really curious as they had been shut for so many years.”

Despite public toilets first opening in the 1800s in the UK, two centuries on, access to the facilities has declined, and put people off from visiting certain towns in the process.

Cash-strapped councils have been selling or transferring their management to try and save money, with some putting measures in place to ensure future owners still provide public access to the facilities.

Janet Martin, like Ms Clark, renovated a toilet block that had been derelict for many years and was no longer in public use.

“It was about to be bulldozed and there was no recognition of it as an architecturally significant building. I do believe we need public toilets,” she said.

The 70-year-old former nurse opened the Phyllis Maud Performance Space, a 35-seat venue, five years ago in honour of her late aunt.

Ms Martin, who also owns Barnabas Arts House in Newport, Wales, said: “She didn’t want a plot, but I thought she couldn’t go out and nothing be left, so I decided to name it after her.

“Now her name is on the lips of lots of people all over. I don’t know what she’d think about that.”

She purchased the building for £15,000 and spent £55,000 renovating it after being drawn to how “freakishly pretty” it was.

“It is quite overdesigned as Edwardian toilets were, and I always thought, what a cute building,” she said.

“It doesn’t feel like you’re in a toilet. It feels like you are in the theatre.”

The listed status of the building meant the white tiling had to be kept, which she said she would have done anyway.

Public toilet conversions, while increasingly trendy and a unique draw to bars, restaurants and performance venues, are not a new phenomenon.

One of the first venues to join the trend was a sandwich bar which appeared in central London over a decade ago.

Music venues, theatres, wine bars and offices soon followed.

Amjid Hafiz owns Latte Caffe on Abbeydale Road in Sheffield, which has served as a newsagents and sweet shop since it was first built as a toilet.

He said: “When it was a shop, I used to come in here and think, ‘I could do something with this. I could do something here.'”

He said the building’s history is a “positive thing”, and even as a small space, has the potential to provide jobs and become something lucrative.

As for the £70,000 “townhouse” up for sale on Archer Road, less than a mile from Latte Caffe, its future is unwritten.

Ms Clark, star of Your Home Made Perfect on BBC2, said: “Renovations need to be done carefully.

“The last thing you want is a developer going ‘turn it into a townhouse’ and then it being badly done, but they can work really well or as cafés, bars and hairdressers too.

“Any regeneration is good regeneration.”

The Lower Thames Crossing will become the largest road tunnel in the UK and is described by National Highways as “the most significant road project in a generation”. But what about the people whose lives it will disrupt?

Surrounded by rolling fields and a close-knit network of neighbours, Jackie Thatcher’s home in Orsett, Essex, provided the serene location she dreamt of enjoying retirement in.

Yet one by one, those neighbours have packed their bags and left, never to return to the homes they once loved.

The 75-year-old now faces a stark choice: sell up or live next to a major road.

The government is pressing ahead with plans for the Lower Thames Crossing, a 14.5-mile (23km) road linking Essex and Kent via two tunnels underneath the river.

It is due to be built by 2032 at a cost of up to £10bn.

But for those living on the route, confirmed by the government on Tuesday, that ambition holds less attraction.

“It’s been like a noose around our neck, ever since the route was chosen,” says Ms Thacker, who has lived in her house for 38 years.

Ms Thacker, a grandmother, has spent most of the past four decades enjoying village life: walking to the pub, playing petanque and visiting the local cricket club.

She becomes tearful while explaining how everything she loves about her life could soon be flattened, sold off or turned into a building site.

“Ever since we’ve been here, we’ve had wonderful neighbours,” Ms Thacker says.

“But now the ones we’ve known for a long time have had to move out due to the pressures brought on by knowing the road was going through.

“It scared the life out of them, so they’ve moved on now.”

It is not the happy end she envisaged for her twilight years.

“It’s breaking my heart,” she admits. “I’m stressed beyond belief.

“I could see myself being here until life’s end and having a peaceful life’s end, but it’s not going to be peaceful anymore.”

For more than 60 years, the Dartford Crossing has been the only Thames road crossing east of London.

Yet it is now used by more traffic than it was ever designed for, instead creating a bottleneck that frequently blocks up the M25.

By providing an alternative route, linking the A2 and M2 in Kent with the A13 and M25 in Thurrock, it is hoped the Lower Thames Crossing will cut traffic there by 20%.

About 2.6 miles (4.2km) of the route will be underground, with northbound and southbound tunnels running next to each other beneath the Thames.

They are expected to be dug east of Gravesend in Kent and to the west of East Tilbury in Essex.

But National Highways has been accused of hoovering up everything in its wake to clear the path for the new road.

So far, it has spent more than £1.2bn in planning and land costs.

The authority says 76 residential properties are on land it needs for the route, 58 of which have already been purchased through a voluntary scheme.

A total of 35 will be demolished, with the rest affected by construction. It insists each purchase has been “robustly scrutinised”.

Alan Rouse, who has lived in the same five-bedroom house in Orsett for 25 years, was among those urged to sell up.

“The whole thing is a complete mess from start to finish,” he sighs.

The 76-year-old was in the middle of building a property for his son in the garden when he got a knock on the door.

“They said ‘Don’t carry on building it – we’re going to knock your house down,'” he explains.

That was in 2018. Five years later, Mr Rouse took another call.

He was told his house was no longer needed.

But Mr Rouse had already accepted a £1.2m deal from National Highways, of which £1m has landed in his bank account.

He has now been given an ultimatum: keep the money and leave his home by November, or buy the property back from National Highways and stay.

“They should’ve thought of this. They’ve jumped in too early and bought properties they don’t need,” Mr Rouse says.

“But if this new road is going to go across the top of my house, we don’t want to be here. It’s upsetting for the whole family.

“I’ve sat in this mess for seven years now. Who makes that seven years up?”

Concerns have also been raised by campaigners, who fear ancient woodland will be destroyed when works begin in 2026.

For Tony and Leigh Hughes, who have lived in South Ockendon for 34 years, the potential damage to wildlife has only worsened their grief.

National Highways has promised that 80% of the crossing will run through either a tunnel, cutting or embankment to blend it into the landscape.

It also wants to make seven “green bridges” to provide safer crossing points for people and wildlife.

One of those bridges falls 75m (250ft) from Mr and Mrs Hughes’s home.

Mrs Hughes fears both residents and wildlife will be disrupted while it is constructed.

“There will be times where the traffic is 24/7. We will not be able to get to our property and the road will be closed at weekends,” she says.

“It’s very, very sketchy on what our life is going to be like.

“It will affect people coming to our house. Who would want to visit us? It’s a horrible, daunting thought that I could go out shopping and not be able to get home.”

The couple have been offered a deal for their house, but they believe it is 20% under its market value.

They says they feel trapped as their property is no longer an attractive proposition for any buyer.

Mrs Hughes continues: “It is a very inhumane situation to be in as we can’t sell, other than to National Highways at a knocked-down price.”

Her husband, 56, adds: “It’s beautiful here and we never intended on leaving.

“Even though we own our property, we have no control over the situation at all.

“We have to find a cash buyer that’s willing to buy a lovely cottage next to a motorway and I’m sorry, but those buyers are very, very few and far between.”

In a statement to the BBC, National Highways insists its landmark project will “improve journeys and bring significant benefits” to the region.

However, a spokesman admits there will be an impact on properties along the route.

“Through a comprehensive programme of consultation we have been able to significantly reduce the number affected by almost 70%, and reached voluntary agreements with many,” he says.

“Following confirmation of our planning consent this week we will be speaking again to impacted property owners about next steps.”

But what is next for those set to have their lives uprooted?

“We don’t know where we’ll be in five years,” says Mr Hughes. “I do know this area won’t be as beautiful as it is now.”

A tearful Ms Thacker adds: “I just can’t visualise moving. I love the place so much and I think moving would be too stressful.”

As for Mr Rouse, he concludes: “I’ve got nowhere to go, but I don’t want to live here with this big road going over my house.

“Highways don’t care though, do they? They’re not worried; they just want their road in.”