Alex Warren is on top of the world.

Ordinary, a song he wrote for his wife Kouvr after their wedding last year, is at number one in six different countries.

He has two more songs in the UK Top 40, and his UK tour has been upgraded to 5,000-capacity venues, due to insatiable demand.

Backstage at the Hammersmith Apollo, the Californian singer is endearingly, humbly bewildered by the whole thing.

“All of this is happening really quickly,” he says. “I only wrote Ordinary three months ago. I’m honestly blown away.”

But the 24-year-old didn’t arrive out of nowhere.

He’s one of the founders of the Hype House – a collaborative TikTok group who lived and worked together in the Los Angeles hills and shepherded millions of teenagers though the pandemic.

You could easily to dismiss him as yet another social media influencer trying to break into the music industry. It’s an accusation he’s aware of, and prepared for.

“I watched a lot of people, a lot of TikTokkers, make music and there was no meaning behind it. It was just something they decided to do,” he says.

“But I wanted to write about real things. No one else can sing my songs. I don’t take other people’s demos. This is all mine.”

Even a passing glance at his discography proves him right.

Warren’s arena pop anthems are searingly honest, almost to a fault, drawing on his challenging childhood, and fairytale romance with Kouvr.

His father died when he was nine years old, after a long struggle with kidney cancer. The loss sent his mother spiralling into alcoholism, something Warren only realised when he tried to clear up one of her coffee mugs.

“It turned out to be alcohol,” he says. “And the next day it was alcohol, and the next day it was alcohol, and at 4am it was alcohol, and when we were driving, it was alcohol.”

When he called her out on it, the addiction turned to abuse.

“Every person struggling with addiction needs someone to blame it on, besides themselves, and I became that person,” he says.

When he was 18, she kicked him out. He was broke and homeless. Friends let him sleep in their cars – never their houses, because his mum had convinced their parents he was a trouble-maker.

Around the same time, he was introduced to Instagram model Kouvr Annon by a friend on Snapchat.

“We just clicked right away,” he says. “I felt I could tell her everything, just after our first conversation.”

Within four months, Kouvr left her family in Hawaii, flew out to California and started living with Warren in a car.

Then, as now, they’re an exceptionally cute couple – tender and funny and clearly besotted with one another. When they started posting videos of their romance online, people wanted to see more. In a span of six months, Warren gained more than a million followers on YouTube.

Combined with the prank videos he’d filmed with his friends, he built a big enough audience to start earning money.

“When I got my first cheque for $2,000 in a month, I was like, ‘Holy cow, this is gonna change my life’,” he recalls.

Some of that money went into the creation of the Hype House in 2019. Warren came up with the name, and moved into the property with Annon and a bunch of young internet stars like Addison Rae, Charlie D’Amelio, Chase Hudson and Thomas Petrou.

The collective introduced themselves in December 2019 with a photoshoot that mimicked Backstreet Boys video for I Want It That Way.

By the end of the day, the hashtag #hypehouse was trending, and the mansion quickly became an incubator for viral videos.

The enterprise thrived during lockdown but, as individual members signed TV deals, or grew tired of the escalating demands for content, it started to fall apart. Warren and Annon left in 2022, citing a desire to “move on to the next chapter in their lives”.

Since then, rumours have swirled about behind-the-scenes drama at the house, with some members hinting at exploitation and mistreatment.

“There was falling out,” Warren told the Zach Sang show in 2023. “But a lot of us signed NDAs, so no-one’s going to talk about it.”

He did, however, pour his frustrations into music.

“How do you sleep at night?” he sings on the angst-ridden Burning Down, a song allegedly targeted at one of the Hype House’s co-founders.

“It scars forever when someone you called your friend / Shows you the truth can be so cold.”

Warren says he never made money from the Hype House. What it did give him, however, was a built-in audience for his music.

“I think that’s really rare,” he says. “Usually, when someone goes from social media to music, they lose that fan base.

“But I think a lot of people watched my YouTube videos because they were having a rough life and needed an escape. So when I started making music about my rough life, I think they identified with it even more.”

Warren dreamt of a music career long before he entered the Hype House. Back when TikTok was called Music.ally, he’d even created a burner account to share his songs.

“I didn’t want to post on my main account, because I was terrified of failing,” he explains.

“As a kid, people bullied me for singing and doing talent shows and dedicating songs to my fifth grade girlfriend, you know?

“So I posted on a random account I created, and I filmed myself singing on the toilet because I wanted to show I wasn’t taking it seriously.

“And the next day, I woke up and had 10 million views.”

His first release was 2021’s One More I Love You, a song he started when he was 13 years old and coming to terms with his father’s death.

“I watched my sister go to a daddy-daughter dance without her dad, and that’s when I realised, ‘Oh, wait, my life is different’,” he recalls.

“I started mourning for the first time, and I didn’t know how to process it, so I just went to the piano and played some chords. And that’s kind of where I started learning how to write.”

Warren’s outpouring of grief is powerful in its simplicity, but it has touched people in ways he couldn’t have anticipated.

“The other day, a woman wanted me to sign a Heinz Beans t-shirt,” he says. “I giggled because I thought that was funny, then she turned it over, and it was the same t-shirt her son wore right before he died from cancer.

“One More I Love You was the song that she played at that funeral and the song she listened to help her get over it.”

“I think that’s the most powerful thing in the world.”

The musician, who was raised a Catholic, believes that healing moments like those are part of God’s plan for him.

“Without all the loss, all the trauma, all the things in my life, I wouldn’t have these songs. I wouldn’t have the means to help the 5,000 people coming to the show tonight, I wouldn’t be able to provide for my future family with my wife.

“And I think those are all things that are meant to happen, or can happen if I make the right choices.

“You know, I could have chosen to get into drugs and be a bad person but I chose this path.

“It’s the craziest thing.”

For two years, Jeannie Dillard has saved what she can on her fixed income to replace the vehicle that was stolen from her home and found totalled a few miles away.

She looked around a used car dealership in Virginia on Thursday, peering at sticker prices with a newfound worry: blanket tariffs on foreign cars and car parts that experts warn could drive up prices in the US. They kick in next week.

She’d like to buy a car now, she said, but: “I have to wait until my finances improve”.

Ms Dillard is among the plethora of Americans bracing for expected economic turbulence under President Donald Trump’s sweeping auto tariffs – an unprecedented US trade policy maneuver.

“It took me a long time to save up for the last car,” she said. “If prices get too high, I’m obviously not going to buy something that I can’t afford.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see.”

On Wednesday, Trump announced new import taxes of 25% on cars and car parts entering the US from overseas that go into effect on 2 April.

Charges on businesses importing vehicles are expected on 3 April, and taxes on parts are set to start in May or later.

Trump and members of his administration have argued that tariffs will lead to “tremendous growth” and increase jobs in the US.

But experts and automakers have warned in dire terms that tariffs could raise prices for US consumers, amplifying the stress of an already sluggish economy.

Mohamad Husseini, co-owner of a used car dealership in Maryland, said he expects the additional tariff costs to get passed down to the consumer.

“The prices in the wholesale market have skyrocketed already,” he told the BBC.

“It’s going to get worse.”

A car that would sell for $13,000 (£10,000) might rise to $14,500 (£11,200) because of the tariffs, Mr Husseini said. He predicts consumers will see prices increase in the next three to six weeks.

The auto tariffs will likely force car dealers like Mr Husseini to raise prices.

“We all still have bills to pay, mouths to feed and employees to pay,” he said.

At another car dealership, Robin Sloan was hoping to get a deal before prices increased.

She said she probably would have waited until the summer to go car shopping, but “with the tariffs, I decided I should go out and look now”.

She rejected the Trump administration’s claim that tariffs will cause Americans to buy US cars instead of foreign.

“I don’t think I would buy a car made in the United States just because of the tariffs, I think I would probably wait a few years until things settle down,” she explained.

From car buyers to car dealers, the effects of tariffs will be widespread, for better or for worse, experts say.

In the US, there are 908 motor vehicles per 1,000 people. About 92% of households own a vehicle.

Car ownership is typically higher in the US than in Europe, surveys say, partly because in the absence of extensive public transport systems, many Americans do not have a choice in how they get around.

They are also more than just a means of transportation. As symbols of both freedom and success, cars have a unique place in the national identity, from the show Pimp My Ride to Janice Joplin singing “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz”.

John Heitmann, a University of Dayton professor and automobile historian who, in his free time, likes to polish his 1982 Mercedes SL, said that tariffs will have an existential, as well as an economic, impact.

“New cars are really out of the reach of a good number of Americans to begin with,” he told the BBC. “Consumers will not benefit, prices will go up,” particularly amongst more affordable vehicles made in Korea, like Hyundais, he said.

As a vintage-car enthusiast, he said tariffs have added a layer of uncertainty to his hobby.

“About 50 minutes ago, I got an email from a part supplier in the UK saying, ‘Don’t worry… they’re not going to go up, probably,'” he said.

“‘We haven’t seen anything in writing yet.’ That’s what they said.”

Higher-end imported vehicles, such as Audis, BMWs and Mercedes, will increase in price, too, Mr Heitmann said, though many of those who buy from such brands might be able to absorb a heftier price tag.

A 2024 study by the US International Trade Commission predicted that a 25% tariff on imports would reduce imports by almost 75%, while increasing average prices in the US by about 5%.

The US imported about eight million cars last year – accounting for about $240bn (£186bn) in trade and roughly half of overall sales.

Despite efforts from some car makers – including Ford and General Motors – to discourage Trump from enacting auto tariffs, the president is forging ahead.

Some car makers are embracing Trump’s tariffs, however.

On Tuesday, Hyundai, the South Korean car-marker, announced it would invest $21bn (£16.3bn) in the US by building a new steel plant in Louisiana.

Trump said the move is a “clear demonstration that tariffs very strongly work”.

But the tariffs are likely to impact domestic cars as well. US auto manufacturing has been deeply intertwined with industries in Canada and Mexico for decades. Parts criss-cross the borders several times before they are assembled, which means that even a vehicle as iconically American as a Ford pickup truck could see a sticker price increase.

Ultimately, Trump’s tariff strategy will thrust the auto industry into uncharted territory, leaving uncertainty hanging over consumers, dealers and automakers until they go into effect on Wednesday.

“Everything’s topsy turvy now, you know, and it’s also terribly filled with uncertainty, because no one exactly knows what kind of game is really being played by the Trump administration related to all the bluster of these tariffs,” Mr Heitmann said.

Some, like Mya Fountain-Bunch, just want to get through the unease. She took her car into a dealership this week to avoid needing a replacement after the tariffs hit.

“[I’m] making sure that my car is working and hopefully I won’t have to buy another car in the next few years, or at least the next four years until this administration is done with.”

Meiying Wu contributed to this report.

The climate action group Just Stop Oil has announced it is to disband at the end of April. Its activists have been derided as attention-seeking zealots and vandals and it is loathed by many for its disruptive direct action tactics. It says it has won because its demand that there should be no new oil and gas licences is now government policy. So, did they really win and does this mark an end to the chaos caused by its climate protests?

Hayley Walsh’s heart was racing as she sat in the audience at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 27 January this year. The 42 year-old lecturer and mother of three tried to calm her breathing. Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver was onstage in her West End debut production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. But Hayley, a Just Stop Oil activist, had her own drama planned.

As Weaver’s Prospero declaimed “Come forth, I say,” Hayley sprang from her seat and rushed the stage with Richard Weir, a 60-year-old mechanical engineer from Tyneside. They launched a confetti cannon and unfurled a banner that read “Over 1.5 Degrees is a Global Shipwreck” – a reference to the news that 2024 was the first year to pass the symbolic 1.5C threshold in global average temperature rise, and a nod to the shipwreck theme in the play.

It was a classic Just Stop Oil (JSO) action. The target was high profile and would guarantee publicity. The message was simple and presented in the group’s signature fluorescent orange.

The reaction of those affected was also a classic response to JSO. Amid the boos and whistles you can hear a shout of “idiots”.

“Drag them off the stage”, one audience member can be heard shouting, “I hope you [expletive] get arrested,” another says.

JSO is a UK-based environmental activist group that aims to end fossil fuel extraction and uses direct action to draw attention to its cause. It has been called a “criminal cult” and its activists branded “eco-loons” by the Sun. The Daily Mail has described it as “deranged” and says its members have “unleashed misery on thousands of ordinary people though their selfish antics”.

The group has thrown soup at a Van Gogh in the National Gallery, exploded a chalk dust bomb during the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield, smashed a cabinet containing a copy of the Magna Carta at the British Library, sprayed temporary paint on the stones of Stonehenge and even defaced Charles Darwin’s grave.

But it is the group’s road protests that have probably caused the most disruption – and public anger. In November 2022, 45 JSO members climbed gantries around the M25 severely disrupting traffic for over four days. People missed flights, medical appointments and exams as thousands of drivers were delayed for hours. The cost to the Metropolitan Police was put at £1.1 million.

Just Stop Oil was born out of Extinction Rebellion (XR). XR – founded in 2018 – brought thousands of people onto the streets in what were dubbed “festivals of resistance”. They came to a peak in April 2019, when protestors brought parts of the capital to a halt for more than a week and plonked a large pink boat in the middle of Oxford Circus.

The spectacle and disruption XR caused generated massive media attention, but the police were furious. Hundreds of officers were diverted from frontline duties and by the end of 2019 the bill for policing the protests had reached £37m.

And behind the scenes XR was riven by furious debates about tactics. Many inside the movement said it should be less confrontational and disruptive but a hard core of activists argued it would be more effective to double down on direct action.

It became clear that there was room for what Sarah Lunnon, one of the co-founders of Just Stop Oil, calls “a more radical flank”. They decided a new, more focused operation was needed, modelled on earlier civil disobedience movements like the Suffragettes, Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaigns and the civil rights movement in the US.

The group was formally launched on Valentine’s Day, 2022. It was a very different animal to XR. Instead of thousands of people taking part in street carnivals, JSO’s actions involved a few committed activists. A small strategy group oversaw the campaign and meticulously planned its activities. A mobilisation team worked to recruit new members, and another team focused on supporting activists after they were arrested.

The dozens of actions the group has carried out generated lots of publicity, but also massive public opposition. There were confrontations between members of the public and protestors and an outcry from politicians across all the main political parties.

The police said they needed more powers to deal with this new form of protest and they got them. New offences were created including interfering with national infrastructure, “locking on” – chaining or gluing yourself to something – and tunnelling underground. Causing a public nuisance also became a potential crime – providing the police with a powerful new tool to use against protestors who block roads.

In the four years since it was formed dozens of the group’s supporters have been jailed. Five activists were handed multi-year sentences for their role in the M25 actions in 2022. Those were reduced on appeal earlier this month but are still the longest jail terms for non-violent civil disobedience ever issued.

Senior JSO members deny the crackdown had anything to do with the group’s decision to “hang up the hi-vis” – as its statement this week announcing the end of campaign put it.

JSO’s public position is that it has won its battle. “Just Stop Oil’s initial demand to end new oil and gas is now government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history,” the group claimed.

The government has said it does not plan to issue any new licences for oil and gas production but strongly denies its policies have a link to JSO. Furthermore, the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson told journalists: “We have been very clear when it comes to oil and gas that it has a future for decades to come in our energy mix.”

And the group’s wider goal – to end the production of oil and gas – has manifestly not been achieved. The members of the group I spoke to for this article all agree the climate crisis has deepened.

In the face of stiffer sentences, some climate campaigners have said they will turn to more clandestine activities. One new group says it plans a campaign of sabotage against key infrastructure. In a manifesto published online it says it plans to “kickstart a new phase of the climate activist movement, aiming to shut down key actors of the fossil fuel economy.”

That’s not a direction the JSO members I spoke to said they wanted to go. Sarah Lunnon said a key principle of JSO and the civil disobedience movement generally was that activists would take responsibility for their actions. One of the first questions new joiners were asked is whether they would be willing to be locked up.

“As corporations and billionaires corrupt political systems across the world, we need a different approach.

“We are creating a new strategy, to face this reality and to carry our responsibilities at this time,” the group says, suggesting they may be planning to form a new movement.

JSO’s most high-profile figure, Roger Hallam, is one of the five activists convicted for their role in the M25 protests. In a message from his prison cell he acknowledged that JSO has only had a “marginal impact”.

That is “not due to lack of trying,” he said. The failure lay with the UK’s “elites and our leaders” who had walked away from their responsibility to tackle the climate crisis, Hallam claimed. A hint perhaps that the group’s new focus might be on the political system itself.

JSO has said its last protest – to be held at the end of April – will mark “the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets”. But don’t believe it. When pressed, the JSO members I spoke to said they may well turn back to disruptive tactics but under a new name and with a new and as yet unspecified objective.

The climate action group Just Stop Oil has announced it is to disband at the end of April. Its activists have been derided as attention-seeking zealots and vandals and it is loathed by many for its disruptive direct action tactics. It says it has won because its demand that there should be no new oil and gas licences is now government policy. So, did they really win and does this mark an end to the chaos caused by its climate protests?

Hayley Walsh’s heart was racing as she sat in the audience at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 27 January this year. The 42 year-old lecturer and mother of three tried to calm her breathing. Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver was onstage in her West End debut production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. But Hayley, a Just Stop Oil activist, had her own drama planned.

As Weaver’s Prospero declaimed “Come forth, I say,” Hayley sprang from her seat and rushed the stage with Richard Weir, a 60-year-old mechanical engineer from Tyneside. They launched a confetti cannon and unfurled a banner that read “Over 1.5 Degrees is a Global Shipwreck” – a reference to the news that 2024 was the first year to pass the symbolic 1.5C threshold in global average temperature rise, and a nod to the shipwreck theme in the play.

It was a classic Just Stop Oil (JSO) action. The target was high profile and would guarantee publicity. The message was simple and presented in the group’s signature fluorescent orange.

The reaction of those affected was also a classic response to JSO. Amid the boos and whistles you can hear a shout of “idiots”.

“Drag them off the stage”, one audience member can be heard shouting, “I hope you [expletive] get arrested,” another says.

JSO is a UK-based environmental activist group that aims to end fossil fuel extraction and uses direct action to draw attention to its cause. It has been called a “criminal cult” and its activists branded “eco-loons” by the Sun. The Daily Mail has described it as “deranged” and says its members have “unleashed misery on thousands of ordinary people though their selfish antics”.

The group has thrown soup at a Van Gogh in the National Gallery, exploded a chalk dust bomb during the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield, smashed a cabinet containing a copy of the Magna Carta at the British Library, sprayed temporary paint on the stones of Stonehenge and even defaced Charles Darwin’s grave.

But it is the group’s road protests that have probably caused the most disruption – and public anger. In November 2022, 45 JSO members climbed gantries around the M25 severely disrupting traffic for over four days. People missed flights, medical appointments and exams as thousands of drivers were delayed for hours. The cost to the Metropolitan Police was put at £1.1 million.

Just Stop Oil was born out of Extinction Rebellion (XR). XR – founded in 2018 – brought thousands of people onto the streets in what were dubbed “festivals of resistance”. They came to a peak in April 2019, when protestors brought parts of the capital to a halt for more than a week and plonked a large pink boat in the middle of Oxford Circus.

The spectacle and disruption XR caused generated massive media attention, but the police were furious. Hundreds of officers were diverted from frontline duties and by the end of 2019 the bill for policing the protests had reached £37m.

And behind the scenes XR was riven by furious debates about tactics. Many inside the movement said it should be less confrontational and disruptive but a hard core of activists argued it would be more effective to double down on direct action.

It became clear that there was room for what Sarah Lunnon, one of the co-founders of Just Stop Oil, calls “a more radical flank”. They decided a new, more focused operation was needed, modelled on earlier civil disobedience movements like the Suffragettes, Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaigns and the civil rights movement in the US.

The group was formally launched on Valentine’s Day, 2022. It was a very different animal to XR. Instead of thousands of people taking part in street carnivals, JSO’s actions involved a few committed activists. A small strategy group oversaw the campaign and meticulously planned its activities. A mobilisation team worked to recruit new members, and another team focused on supporting activists after they were arrested.

The dozens of actions the group has carried out generated lots of publicity, but also massive public opposition. There were confrontations between members of the public and protestors and an outcry from politicians across all the main political parties.

The police said they needed more powers to deal with this new form of protest and they got them. New offences were created including interfering with national infrastructure, “locking on” – chaining or gluing yourself to something – and tunnelling underground. Causing a public nuisance also became a potential crime – providing the police with a powerful new tool to use against protestors who block roads.

In the four years since it was formed dozens of the group’s supporters have been jailed. Five activists were handed multi-year sentences for their role in the M25 actions in 2022. Those were reduced on appeal earlier this month but are still the longest jail terms for non-violent civil disobedience ever issued.

Senior JSO members deny the crackdown had anything to do with the group’s decision to “hang up the hi-vis” – as its statement this week announcing the end of campaign put it.

JSO’s public position is that it has won its battle. “Just Stop Oil’s initial demand to end new oil and gas is now government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history,” the group claimed.

The government has said it does not plan to issue any new licences for oil and gas production but strongly denies its policies have a link to JSO. Furthermore, the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson told journalists: “We have been very clear when it comes to oil and gas that it has a future for decades to come in our energy mix.”

And the group’s wider goal – to end the production of oil and gas – has manifestly not been achieved. The members of the group I spoke to for this article all agree the climate crisis has deepened.

In the face of stiffer sentences, some climate campaigners have said they will turn to more clandestine activities. One new group says it plans a campaign of sabotage against key infrastructure. In a manifesto published online it says it plans to “kickstart a new phase of the climate activist movement, aiming to shut down key actors of the fossil fuel economy.”

That’s not a direction the JSO members I spoke to said they wanted to go. Sarah Lunnon said a key principle of JSO and the civil disobedience movement generally was that activists would take responsibility for their actions. One of the first questions new joiners were asked is whether they would be willing to be locked up.

“As corporations and billionaires corrupt political systems across the world, we need a different approach.

“We are creating a new strategy, to face this reality and to carry our responsibilities at this time,” the group says, suggesting they may be planning to form a new movement.

JSO’s most high-profile figure, Roger Hallam, is one of the five activists convicted for their role in the M25 protests. In a message from his prison cell he acknowledged that JSO has only had a “marginal impact”.

That is “not due to lack of trying,” he said. The failure lay with the UK’s “elites and our leaders” who had walked away from their responsibility to tackle the climate crisis, Hallam claimed. A hint perhaps that the group’s new focus might be on the political system itself.

JSO has said its last protest – to be held at the end of April – will mark “the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets”. But don’t believe it. When pressed, the JSO members I spoke to said they may well turn back to disruptive tactics but under a new name and with a new and as yet unspecified objective.

David remembers the moment he found his elderly stepfather, John, unkempt and suffering from dementia, living alone in an unclean hotel room.

“I didn’t think you’d leave an animal in the state that room was in,” he says. ” There was no care at all. You would not leave a vulnerable old man like that.”

Months earlier, John had vanished. His eldest granddaughter, Amy, had taken control of his welfare and his finances, and stopped any contact between John and the rest of his family, including Barbara, his wife of many years.

With Amy’s help, John had changed his will, making her the sole beneficiary, and had then been left to live by himself in a single room, confused and isolated.

John’s family was one of hundreds who contacted the BBC after hearing The Willpower Detectives last year.

The series revealed how a partner at an Essex-based law firm was using what’s known as Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) to take over the finances of vulnerable clients.

In June, Parliament will debate a private member’s bill to provide extra safeguards to LPA. The bill – introduced by the MP Fabian Hamilton – has cross-party support, and is shaped in part by the BBC’s investigations and the huge public response to the cases raised.

The story of John Wilcox demonstrates how, in handing over responsibility for their financial assets, vulnerable people can sometimes be put at risk by members of their own family.

After many years of running a successful office-furnishing business in Leeds, John and Barbara Wilcox had retired and were living comfortably in mid-Wales.

Both had been married before. John had no children of his own, but he loved Barbara’s son and daughter as his own, as well as her three grandchildren. To each of these, he had given enough money to buy their first homes.

However, everything changed in 2020 when John was diagnosed with dementia.

The condition caused a personality change, and John became delusional and paranoid. He started to accuse Barbara and his own brother Desmond of plotting against him.

Following a collapse at home John was taken to hospital, where – because of Covid restrictions – nobody was allowed to visit.

This isolation fed John’s feelings of paranoia, and the suspicion that he had been abandoned by his family.

It was during this time that John’s eldest granddaughter, Amy – the one person he still seemed to trust – began to take charge of his life.

At first, no-one in the family was suspicious. John had always been close to Amy.

Unknown to them, John had requested and signed a form banning contact between anyone involved in his care and anyone in his family, apart from Amy.

Even though his medical notes describe him as paranoid and delusional, John was declared as having “mental capacity” – this was significant because it meant he could legally grant someone lasting power of attorney over his finances.

Barbara says her efforts to raise concerns with social services were blanked: “They just didn’t want to know. They weren’t interested in the letters that we wrote.”

After three months in hospital, John was discharged into Amy’s care. She suggested he could recuperate at a care home at Paignton in Devon, near where she lived, while she readied her house for him to stay there.

At this stage, the other family members thought this was just a temporary arrangement in everyone’s best interests. Amy said that it was what John wanted, and it would be a respite for Barbara.

However, Barbara recalls: “As soon as she got him down there, the vitriol started.” Amy told the rest of the family they no longer had any say about John’s welfare, and they were not to try to contact him.

In response to their pleas, it was agreed that a niece of John’s would call him once a week to check that he was alright.

But six weeks after he was admitted to the care home, the niece made her regular call, only to be told that John had left.

The family was devastated – John had disappeared.

They went to the police but were told he had signed a form in hospital instructing that no information should be shared with them. They were only told that John was not living with Amy.

The family discovered that John had signed an LPA document giving Amy power of attorney over all his property and finances.

Meanwhile, a solicitor in Devon contacted Barbara asking about their home and joint assets. Barbara later found out about John’s new will, which named Amy as the sole beneficiary.

This development had immediate and stressful consequences. The solicitor asked Barbara to begin the process of selling the home she had shared with John, in order to release his share of their assets.

John’s brother, Desmond, took the lead in trying to find out where John now was. It took him several weeks.

He says he rang 50 care homes, trying to track John down. He and Barbara also wrote to Amy asking her to at least tell them how her grandfather was, but they say they never received a reply.

Eventually, Amy’s aunt confronted her in person, and found out that John was in a hotel in Torquay.

Desmond knew that in the past, John had lent £100,000 to a friend who owned several hotels in south-west England.

It appeared that John had been put up at one of these hotels. The owner had made a deal to offset John’s bill (a nightly rate of £265) against his outstanding debt.

Amy’s father, David, drove to the hotel. He was horrified by what he found: “The conditions he was living in were appalling. I was absolutely astounded.”

John was renting the room only – with no cleaning services or food. There was a fridge and a microwave oven – in which he would heat ready meals supplied by Amy.

For David, it was the ultimate betrayal of a vulnerable man. He says that John was dishevelled and confused: “He was just abandoned. He hardly went out of that room and it was in a terrible state.”

Having found John, his family decided they needed to tread carefully. They say they wanted him to understand the truth about what had been done to him, and they were also worried that Amy might try to move him again.

At first, John refused to see Barbara, claiming she had tried to kill him, and that she had never come to see him in hospital.

And then one day, Barbara drove to John’s hotel with her son David and his partner Julie. She stayed outside in the car but gave David a tin of flapjacks to take to John in his room.

The touch and smell of a faded everyday item – an old cake tin with some homemade flapjacks inside – seemed to have an effect on him.

“I know what’s in there,” he said to his stepson.

“Do you know who made them?” David remembers asking John.

John replied: “Yes I do.”

David then offered to bring Barbara into the hotel room and John agreed.

Barbara says she was heartbroken by her husband’s physical and mental deterioration. He weighed only seven-and-a-half stone, and he was so weak that she thinks he would have died if he had been left much longer.

It was a “very, very emotional” reunion, she remembers. Before long, they were holding hands and John had agreed to come home with her.

The next day, Barbara and her brother Mike came back to the hotel to pick John up. Mike says it felt like they were “planning a heist”. He recalls that “as we drove away and started to get out of Torquay, I said: ‘Oh gosh, we got away with that.'”

Back in Wales, Barbara was able to see John’s bank accounts, and discovered that Amy had taken more than £5,000 – there was just 16p left in his account.

But John’s story had a happy ending of sorts. He managed to get the power of attorney and the new will cast aside, and lived for nine months with Barbara in Wales, before dying peacefully at home.

His tale highlights the difficulties involved when it comes to deciding who has control of what’s often seen as “family money”, and who will inherit it.

Issues of mental capacity have to be considered in situations like these, according to James Warner, a consultant in old-age psychiatry.

“Dementia makes people susceptible to manipulation and those involved with overseeing important changes need to be extra-vigilant,” he says.

The elderly and vulnerable can quickly find themselves in situations where they are extremely vulnerable, he says, and more needs to be done to protect them.

The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) holds power of attorney records for more than eight million people in England and Wales, but last year it investigated less than 1% of the cases brought to its attention.

Labour MP Fabian Hamilton says the OPG can be “toothless” for vulnerable elderly people and their families.

Mr Hamilton says changes are needed to provide greater safeguards, and his private member’s bill on attorney powers is due for its second reading in June.

The bill – which has cross-party support – would compel banks and regulators to check for issues such as cognitive decline, and greater scrutiny over whether an attorney is abusing their LPA powers.

Barbara thinks that the proposed legislation could have helped in her situation.

“In cases like John’s, where you have this kind of paranoia, solicitors involved with a power of attorney should be making enquiries of the family and verifying,” she says.

Meanwhile, John’s family have had no contact with Amy, unable to forgive the hurt she caused them and what she put her grandfather through.

They say they still do not understand why Amy acted in the way she did. She (along with John’s other grandchildren) had already been given money enough to buy a house each, and she stood to inherit more eventually.

In May 2024, Amy accepted a police caution for fraud – which in law is an admission of guilt – specifically because she had taken money from John’s account after he had returned to Wales, and was no longer in her care.

When I wrote to Amy about this, she replied that she had only accepted the caution to lift the stress from herself and her family, and didn’t regard it as just.

She told me that there were two sides to every story and that all of John’s decisions were made by him in the company of his solicitor. She added that the decision not to tell John’s family anything was at his request.

US Vice-President JD Vance has accused Denmark of leaving Greenland vulnerable to alleged incursions by China and Russia, as he asked its people to “cut a deal” with the US.

Speaking during a visit to the Arctic island, Vance minimised recent threats by President Donald Trump to take over the island by force.

Instead, he urged Greenlanders to sever its ties with Denmark, which has owned the island for more than 300 years, saying the nation had not invested enough to protect the semi-autonomous territory.

An overwhelming majority of Greenlanders oppose the idea of annexation, a poll indicated in January. Greenland’s prime minister has said the US visit showed a “lack of respect”.

And Denmark’s King Frederik also rejected the US plan.

“We live in an altered reality,” said the monarch on social media on Friday. “There should be no doubt that my love for Greenland and my connectedness to the people of Greenland are intact.”

Friday’s visit was initially billed as a “cultural” tour by Vance’s wife, Usha, where she would watch a dog-sledding race, but it spiralled over multiple days of adjustments as the visit attracted scrutiny and security concerns, with multiple protests planned.

Instead, Vance and the second lady were in Greenland for just a few hours, visiting just the Pituffik Space Base, a missile defence facility in the remote north of the island, some 930 miles (1,500km) from the capital, Nuuk.

He used the opportunity to take aim at Denmark, alleging it had to “keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China, and other nations”, without providing further details.

He specifically called out the countries for taking interest in routes and minerals in the region, as the island of 57,000 people is believed to hold massive untapped mineral and oil reserves.

In his remarks, Vance sought to reassure the people of Greenland that the US would not use military force to take the island from Denmark. Instead, he urged Greenlanders to embrace “self-determination” and sever ties with Denmark, which has controlled the region since 1721.

“We think we’re going to be able to cut a deal, Donald Trump-style, to ensure the security of this territory,” Vance said.

“We hope that they choose to partner with the United States, because we’re the only nation on Earth that will respect their sovereignty and respect their security, ” he said, adding “Their security is very much our security.”

The vice-president said the US did not have immediate plans to expand the American military presence on the ground, but would invest more resources, including naval ships and military icebreakers.

“Our message to Denmark is very simple,” Vance said.

“You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under-invested in the security of this incredible, beautiful landmass.”

Along with his wife, Vance was joined on trip by US national security adviser Mike Waltz, and energy secretary Chris Wright.

The outside temperature at Pituffik was -3F (-19 C).

Back at the White House, President Trump insisted the US needed Greenland to guarantee “peace of the entire world” and that its waterways had “Chinese and Russian ships all over the place”.

“We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security,” he said.

“We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of: ‘Do you think we can do without it?’ We can’t.”

He said Denmark and the European Union understood the situation “and if they don’t, we’re going to have to explain it to them.”

In a statement to the BBC, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen took issue with Vance’s comments.

“For many years we have stood side by side with the Americans in very difficult situations,” she said. “Therefore, it is not an accurate way for the vice-president to refer to Denmark.”

She said Denmark had significantly increased defence spending, but would further boost its investment with more surveillance, new Arctic ships, long-range drones and satellite capacity.

“We are ready – day and night – to co-operate with the Americans,” she said. “A cooperation that must be based on the necessary international rules of the game.”

Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said prior to Vance’s visit that it showed “a lack of respect for the Greenlandic people”.

In Greenland’s capital of Nuuk, some people the BBC spoke to were not won over by the US overtures.

At a cultural centre in the city, artist Karline Poulsen said: “There are many ways to say things. But I think the way President Trump is saying it is not the way.”

A woman who gave her name only as Nina said: “I’m concerned [about the visit]. This is kind of odd, I don’t like it.”

Her daughter, Anita, said the visit has caused “a lot of uncertainty and a lot of people are worried”.

Since 2009, Greenland has had the right to call an independence referendum, though in recent years some political parties have begun pushing more for it.

Greenland governs its own domestic affairs, but decisions on foreign and defence policy are made in Copenhagen. Five of the six main parties who participated in this month’s election favour independence from Denmark, but they disagree over the pace with which to reach it.

Trump first floated the idea of buying Greenland during his first term – and his desire to own the island has only grown with time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he considered Trump’s plans for Greenland “serious”.

He expressed concern that “Nato countries, in general, are increasingly designating the Far North as a springboard for possible conflicts”.

Qupanuk Olsen, a Greenland politician with the pro-independence party Naleraq, told the BBC the country is taking the US interest in the island very serious.

“We’re afraid of being colonised again. We’ve been a colony for the past 300 years under Denmark, it still feels like it,” Olsen says. “Now another coloniser is interested in us.”

Troy Bouffard, a University of Alaska professor focused on arctic security, told the BBC that Trump is leaning on his business sense to accomplish what he wants in the region, rather than geopolitics or diplomacy.

“If you’re thinking of this issue only in terms of diplomacy, you’re going to miss out on what other options the US might have to close this deal to pressure the main actors into negotiating or compromising,” he said.

Mr Bouffard said the endgame for the US is to a have “much more robust relationship” with Greenland.

One of the potential scenarios could be axing Denmark from the picture, and having the US establish a relationship that replaces Denmark, he notes.

Mr Bouffard suggested it’s possible the US changes the nature of the relationship and takes on some responsibilities that normally belongs to Denmark.

Ana Faguy contributed reporting for this story.

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.”