“They generally put themselves last, they put their animals first, and they don’t know how to switch off.”

A man from Northern Ireland has urged other farmers to treat their mental health as seriously as they would physical safety on the farm, as farmer wellbeing is at its lowest point in four years.

The Farm Safety Foundation (Yellow Wellies) is marking its ninth annual Mind Your Head week from February 9 to 13, by looking at tackling the issue of suicide risk in the UK agricultural industry.

The campaign is calling on farmers, rural organisations, colleges and Young Farmers Clubs to start life-saving conversations, learn practical skills and connect communities to support – addressing what many now recognise as the industry’s “biggest hidden problem.”

READ MORE: MLA emotional as she pays tribute ‘amazing little boy’ killed in road accidentREAD MORE: Young Lisburn farmer raising awareness of mental health in the industry after losing friends to suicide

Gyles Dawson from Co Armagh has been working in the agri-business sector for over 30 years, is a part-time farmer, and works for the charity Rural Support to ensure agricultural workers in Northern Ireland have the support they need.

He said the demand for help regarding mental wellbeing is “rising sharply.” In the year 2024-2025, Rural Support received 446 calls through their confidential support helpline, a 22% increase on the previous year, with the most common age group being those from 45-54.

Speaking to Belfast Live, Gyles said: “The most alarming thing is two in five of those calls are people showing suicial ideation, which is very concerning. The top concerns we are seeing are financial difficulties, mental health struggles, succession planning, and weather issues.

“We have seen a 55% increase in counselling referrals and a 54% rise in the overall business mentoring support we provide. There is an awful lot for farmers to navigate, but we can work alongside them to offer support.”

He said Rural Support are proud to support the Mind Your Head campaign, adding that farmers need to reach out for help when they need it, and must treat their mental wellbeing as seriously as physical safety on the farm.

Gyles added: “Farming is hard work, seven days a week, with many farmers working 60+ hours a week. Many are struggling with rural isolation, alongside financial stress and uncertainty.

“Weather makes a significant difference to farming practises. Then you have family succession pressures, and unfortunately 91% of farmers now see mental health as one of the biggest hidden challenges in the industry.

“In bygone days, farmers would have had employees to help out on the farm. Mechanisation has helped tremendously, but the issue now is because farm incomes over the past two years have not been so good, you’re finding a lot of farms are having to cut back on employee labour. They’re working longer hours themselves, which causes a rise in fatigue and the possibility of farm accidents increasing.

“Farmers generally put themselves last, they put their animals first, and they don’t know how to switch off. They are very resilient people and will go a long way before they actually go out and ask for help.”

The latest research from the Farm Safety Foundation found that overall wellbeing within the farming community lags behind the UK general population and has fallen to its lowest point in four years. This is measured by the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS), a widely used national measure of positive mental health.

Mental wellbeing among farmers over 40 years old hits a four-year low, with the sharpest decline being among those aged 61 – historically the most resilient group. Until recently, this age group consistently reported mental wellbeing levels above the UK average – a sign of resilience in one of the toughest professions. But that resilience is now under severe strain.

As for the support provided by the charity Rural Support in Northern Ireland, Gyles said: “We provide support through community-based counselling and business mentoring, we will go out to a farm and provide that support there.

“Farmers feel safe in their own environment, and if we can meet them in their own environment, then that tends to drop the barriers a little bit more, and they feel more open to talk, and it combats that rural isolation part as well.

“We also have a crisis support and non-crisis support platform. So the crisis support platform consists of business mentors and mental health counsellors who provide that service directly on farm to farmers, and then we have sort of the non-crisis side of things which is the likes of Plough On groups which are to combat loneliness.”

Stephanie Berkeley, Manager of the Farm Safety Foundation, said: “Over the past nine years, we have made significant strides in raising awareness and improving education around mental health. However, when it comes to suicide prevention, progress has been far more limited.

“While agriculture in the UK benefits from rural support groups and charities who deliver vital, high-quality support, a critical gap remains: there is still very little suicide prevention training tailored specifically for those working in agriculture.

“Farming brings a unique set of pressures – long hours, isolation, financial uncertainty, generational expectations and physical risk. Conversations about suicide in rural communities require approaches that are real, relatable and rooted in lived experience. Without training designed for the realities of agricultural life, we risk leaving those most vulnerable without the tools they need to recognise warning signs and intervene effectively.”

Stephanie continued: “Farming is tough. Long hours, hard graft and a mindset that says ‘just get on with it.’ That grit is admirable – but it is also why some farmers leave it too late to ask for help.

“As we enter 2026, we want to address the issue of suicide awareness and prevention. Too many farming families are quietly carrying the weight of crisis and loss. The message this year is simple: learn the steps, start conversations earlier and look out for each other. When communities know what to say and what to do, lives can be saved.”

To find out more about Rural Support, click here. You can also call their confidential helpline on 08001381678.

Anyone who needs to talk to someone about mental health issues can call the Samaritans on 116123 or Lifeline on 0808 808 8000.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

Alan Shearer says Chelsea and England star Cole Palmer has been in a ‘horrible position’ due to his reoccurring injury problems.

Palmer has started less than half of Chelsea’s Premier League games this season as he has been dogged by a persistent groin injury.

The 23-year-old, a former Premier League Young Player of the Season, scored a hat-trick in Chelsea’s 3-1 win over Wolves on Saturday.

Those three goals almost doubled Palmer’s tally for the season, taking him from four Premier League goals to seven.

Premier League record goalscorer and ex-England striker Shearer had his fair share of injury setbacks during his career and says he ‘hated’ being in the position Palmer has found himself in this season.

‘It was really interesting listening to Cole Palmer after the [Wolves] game saying he’s having to manage his injury in a specific way,’ Shearer said on The Rest is Football podcast.

‘I hated being in that position as a player, when you know you need to get through an injury and you’re not being able to train as much as you want.

‘You get to the game, then you’re back to square one when it’s feeling okay. It’s a horrible position to be in that so the sooner he gets over that the better.’

Gary Lineker, who believes he suffered the exact same issue as Palmer, added: ‘I know that injury, funnily enough, I spent a year at Everton with that injury.

‘It was exactly the same as Cole Palmer’s one, it was niggly and I never trained, and that’s why people used to say he never trains, he just has a bath every day.

‘There was a reason for that. I was struggling. It never stopped me from playing, I could always play through it, but the niggle was there all of the time.

‘It wasn’t really until I had a break after the World Cup that it went away.

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‘It’s a weird one, because it niggles you, once you play, you’re alright, but you can do something, and it stiffens up. It sounds like Cole is going through the same thing.’

Chelsea boss Liam Rosenior hailed Palmer as ‘world-class’ and ‘unstoppable’ following his hat-trick against bottom-placed Wolves.

‘We know what a world-class player he is,’ the new Stamford Bridge manager said. ‘He’s played a lot of football over the last year with not much rest.

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‘When he’s at his best, he’s unstoppable. I’m delighted to be working with him.’

Speaking at his pre-Leeds United press conference on Monday afternoon, Rosenior confirmed Palmer came out of the Wolves win unscathed and was fit to start at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night.

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‘Cole is available for tomorrow,’ Rosenior said. ‘I think any world-class player is important to what you want to achieve.

‘So for me, it’s been great to see him enjoying his football and on Saturday it’s been great to see him banging in the goals and hopefully his form continues in that way.’

Chelsea are fifth in the Premier League ahead of their clash with 16th-placed Leeds, one point outside the top-four places.

Palmer’s injury issues earlier in the season appeared to put his World Cup hopes in jeopardy but Danny Murphy says he is a ‘sure thing’ to be picked by England if he stays fit.

‘If he’s impacting games, like we know he can, from now to the end of the season, he’s a sure thing to be in the squad,’ the former Liverpool and England midfielder told BBC Sport.

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‘He can play wide, he can play as a 10. He’s just so good on the ball and classy and simply doesn’t fear anybody.

‘Even if you bring him off the bench, you know he can do unbelievable things. He can win you a game in a heartbeat.’

Chelsea suffered a shock defeat to Leeds United the last time these two sides met in what turned out to be one of Enzo Maresca’s final games in charge.

The west Londoners have largely impressed since Rosenior replaced Maresca last month, winning seven of their last nine games, with the only two setbacks coming in either leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Arsenal.

‘I know they’re out of the Carabao Cup but he’s had a rally good start,’ Shearer said of Rosenior, who left French side Strasbourg to take charge of Chelsea.

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‘They’ve got Leeds and Burnley next [in the Premier League] as well so it might get a bit tougher after that.

‘It’s been really good because you do feel like there’s some people who are waiting for Rosenior to fail but he can’t control that.

‘You can do and say whatever you like if you’re winning games. It’s going well for him.’

For more stories like this, check our sport page.

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The Money Saving Expert highlighted the government’s Help to Save scheme and regular saver accounts offering up to 7.1% interest during his BBC podcast

Martin Lewis has discussed a DWP scheme that savers might wish to consider. The consumer expert offered several tips on building savings during an episode of his BBC podcast.

He dedicated a significant portion of the programme to examining mortgage overpayments and whether this strategy is more advantageous than placing money into savings accounts.

One listener asked about what to do with a lump sum of £90,000 that they were about to receive. They were paying a relatively high mortgage rate of 5.6 per cent and asked for advice on how to use the money.

Mr Lewis said his general principle is that if your mortgage rate surpasses the highest after-tax savings rate available, it may be more sensible to overpay your mortgage rather than deposit cash into savings. Responding to the question, Mr Lewis initially stated that “you cannot earn 5.6 percent in savings”.

He pointed out certain savings vehicles where this rate can be exceeded. He mentioned briefly: “With the exception of a Help to Save if you’re on Universal Credit or a regular saver where you can put a couple of hundred quid a month in.”

The Help to Save scheme is worth considering if you’re receiving Universal Credit, as it offers a 50 per cent bonus on deposits. Through the scheme, you receive a 50p bonus for every £1 you deposit into the account over a four-year period, reports the Mirror.

You can contribute between £1 and £50 each month, meaning you can save up to £2,400 over four years, earning up to £1,200 in bonuses. Savers receive their bonuses across two stages, with the first payout arriving after the initial two years, calculated on the highest balance achieved during that period.

The second bonus comes at the conclusion of year four, determined by the highest balance reached in years three and four. When it comes to regular saver accounts, you can get rates of over 7 per cent, but there are restrictions on monthly deposits.

Take Nationwide Building Society’s Flex Regular Saver, for instance, which offers 6.5 per cent but caps monthly contributions at £200. By depositing the maximum amount, savers could pocket £84.50 annually in interest.

Currently, Zopa leads the market with its Regular Saver offering 7.1 per cent, allowing customers to stash away up to £300 monthly. Financial experts are forecasting further cuts to the Bank of England’s base rate this year.

The rate presently stands at 3.75 per cent. The central bank opted to maintain this level in its most recent announcement.

Abdul Kahar, 41, met the girl, 15, on Snapchat and after giving her vodka to the point where she was sick, he proceeded to rape her in his car despite the victim trying to push the predator away, a court heard

A “sexual predator” raped a 15-year-old girl in his car after giving her so much alcohol she was sick twice – and was caught when the victim raised the alarm by calling police “asking for a pizza”.

Abdul Kahar, 41, met the 15-year-old girl on Snapchat and arranged to meet her while posing as a 17-year-old boy called ‘Jay’. The father-of-one, who is also married, picked the girl up in Druid’s Heath, Birmingham after promising her they could “drink and a chill”.

But after forcing the girl to drink vodka, to the point where she was sick twice, Kahar started touching her breasts in the front of the vehicle before taking her to the back where he removed her clothes, Birmingham Crown Court heard.

On a number of occasions the teenager tried to push the defendant away and at one stage “he put his hands around her throat and squeezed so she could not breathe”, Francesca Perera, prosecuting, said.

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The girl, now 16, lived in a children’s home and was in the care of the local authority at the time of the attack, the court heard. It was said Kahar told the victim on Snapchat before they met that she looked pretty, and also asked for naked pictures of her, whether she had ever had sex with anyone else and if she would do anything for him for money.

After the attack the quick-thinking victim duped Kahar into believing she was dialling for a pizza when in fact she called the police control centre as she sat in his vehicle. The girl had seen a video on TikTok where another sexual assault victim had phoned police to send a SOS by ‘ordering a pizza’.

The call-handler asked her ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions to establish exactly what was happening on June 28 last year. When she asked the girl if she was in danger she replied “yeah”. The victim was able to tell police the exact location.

Kahar pleaded guilty to two charges of raping a female under 16, four charges of sexually assaulting a female over 13, non-fatal intentional strangulation and breach of a sexual harm prevention order. He was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court for 15 years and three months on Monday.

Sentencing, Judge Sarah Buckingham said: “At the time of the offences you were 40 while she was 15. You were well over twice her age. You are a sexual predator with a deep seated sexual attraction to young and underage girls. It would have been obvious to you that she was particularly vulnerable and at risk of exploitation so you exploited her and plied her with alcohol.

“When she tried to resist you put your hands around her throat and forced her to stop resisting. You had utterly no regard for her well being despite your claims. This was a prolonged incident and your offending was planned. You are a 41-year-old father of an eight-year-old boy. You should be utterly ashamed of yourself. You have disgraced yourself and brought shame upon your family.”

Ben Hargreaves, defending, said “It is always the family of the defendant who will suffer the most. He has an eight-year-old and a wife who are dumbfounded by his behaviour.”

Detective Constable Lauren Campbell, of West Midlands Police, said: “Kahar posed as a 17-year-old boy on Snapchat and groomed a vulnerable 15-year-old girl online for a period of time before she agreed to meet up with him. He then raped and sexually assaulted her in his car.

“I want to praise the brave actions of the girl and also praise the call handler for having the foresight to understand this was a call for help from someone who was vulnerable and in danger.”

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal authorities have denied attempting to expedite an end to asylum claims by the family of a 5-year-old boy who was detained with his father during the immigration crackdown that has shaken the Minneapolis area.

Images of Liam Conejo Ramos wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack surrounded by immigration officers stirred outrage over the crackdown.

Danielle Molliver, a lawyer for the boy and his father, told the New York Times that the government was attempting to speed up the deportation proceedings, calling the actions “extraordinary” and possibly “retaliatory.”

The government denied that.

“These are regular removal proceedings. They are not in expedited removal,” Department of Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, adding “there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.”

Molliver told the Times that an immigration judge, during a closed Friday hearing, gave her additional time to argue the family’s case.

The boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who originally is from Ecuador, were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. They were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

They were released following a judge’s order and returned to Minnesota on Feb. 1.

Neighbors and school officials have accused federal immigration officers of using the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would come outside. DHS has called that description of events an “abject lie.” It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.

The government said the boy’s father entered the U.S. illegally from Ecuador in December 2024. The family’s lawyer said he has an asylum claim pending that allows him to stay in the U.S.

Councillor says dirty signs and street furniture “doesn’t give a good impression of this place”

Ards and North Down Borough Council is to look at “basic maintenance” and cleaning of public infrastructure, following a viral social media video showing a local cleaning firm cleaning signage around Bangor for free.

Elected representatives have unanimously agreed to a DUP motion calling for a review of the maintenance of council property and the public realm. The motion passed at committee level and will go to the council’s full council at the the end of the month for ratification, where it is expected to pass.

Councillors are reacting to high profile media reports at the start of the year focusing on individuals from a private cleaning firm who spent the holiday period voluntarily cleaning public signage around Bangor for free after describing the situation as “shameful.”

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The man who conceived the motion, DUP Councillor Alistair Cathcart, said at the February meeting of the council’s Environment committee: “We are calling our council to get back to basics and ensure our towns, cities and villages are looking their best. A dirty footpath, flowerbeds being unkept, street furniture being damaged and not maintained – it doesn’t give a good impression of this place.

“The council is making fantastic progress on the bigger stuff, the regeneration scheme for Bangor and elsewhere are really terrific, but I don’t think there has been enough focus on getting the basics right.”

He said: “The dirty street signs may not sound that important in the grand scheme of things, but they are really noticeable, they irritate people, and give the impression that we just don’t care. That is not the impression I want to give of Bangor, or this borough. But I am spending a lot of time reporting these basic maintenance issues.

“The council are very good in their responses to that, and I am grateful for the hard work they do, but it shouldn’t be dealt with in a reactive manner. There should be policies in place to ensure the basic maintenance of our urban centres is being done.”

He said the matter came to a head for him around Christmas with the “dirty” City Hall sign at Bangor, which went viral on social media.

He said: “It became a symbol of the council not caring, and frankly being so useless that they couldn’t even clean their own sign on their own building. It has been embarrassing for the council. We have a sign policy in place but it clearly wasn’t followed.

“We agreed a proactive maintenance strategy 10 years ago when this council was formed. It is clear this needs to be reviewed, because it is not working as well as it should.

“There are elements that work well, the maintenance strategy for our buildings works quite well, but it is around those things I have mentioned, the signs, the furniture and other public realm is really the concern.”

The council motion states it will commit to a review of its current proactive maintenance and cleansing regimes, “highlighting options and opportunities for improvement and associated budgetary requirements, so as to allow members to consider potential improvements in outcomes.”

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter

It finally lands on our screens this Thursday

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast finally drops on our screens this week.

The new Netflix series, from Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee, follows three lifelong friends in their late 30s who have remained a tight-knit group since their school days.

Coming to the streaming platform on February 12, the plot is set in motion when the friends receive a mysterious email announcing the death of the estranged fourth member of their childhood gang.

READ MORE: How to Get to Heaven from Belfast ‘shares Derry Girls DNA’ but is something very different, says Lisa McGeeREAD MORE: Everything you need to know about new Netflix series How to Get to Heaven from Belfast

With the news that Belfast City Airport has increased its car parking charges last week, Netflix has shared an exclusive first look at the new show with Belfast Live.

In the snippet, we see Robyn and Dara head to the airport to pick up Saorise and end up parking in the Harland and Wolff yard as Dara complains about the price of parking.

Watch the video below…

Roísín Gallagher stars as Saoirse, Sinéad Keenan and Caoilfhionn Dunne star as Robyn and Dara respectively – the supporting cast features notable talent, including Michelle Fairley, Saoirse-Monica Jackson from Derry Girls and Oscar-winner James Martin.

‘How to Get to Heaven from Belfast’ will premiere on Netflix globally on 12th February

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our What’s On newsletter

In April 2007, the Baltic nation of Estonia woke up to one of the world’s first major cyber-attacks on civil society carried out by a state. A series of massive “distributed denial of service” assaults – floods of fake traffic from networked computers – targeted government websites, banks, media outlets and online services for weeks, slowing or shutting them down.

These cyber-attacks followed Estonia’s decision to relocate a Soviet-era war memorial and war graves from the centre of the capital city, Tallinn, to a military cemetery.

Amplified by false reports in Russian media, this sparked nights of protest and rioting among Russian-speakers in Tallinn – and cyber chaos throughout the country. Though the cyber-attack was never officially sanctioned by the Kremlin, the “faceless perpetrators” were later shown to have Russian connections.

Estonia has since transformed itself, in part through voluntary initiatives such as the Cyber Defence Unit (a network of private-sector IT experts), into a leader in this field. It is home to Nato’s Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, and ranks fifth in the International Telecommunication Union’s global cybersecurity index – alongside the UK.

But in many ways, Estonia is far ahead of Britain in its cybersecurity planning. A 2025 government review found that nearly one-third of the UK’s public sector IT systems were “critically vulnerable” due to historical underinvestment – with some aspects of the police and NHS at particular risk.

International cyber-attacks on the UK increased by 50% last year. “Nationally significant” incidents rose from 89 to 204 – including, in September 2025, a major ransomware attack on Jaguar Land Rover that halted production for a month, causing losses of around £1.9 billion.

Amid these threats, the UK government recently launched its Cyber Action Plan and held the first ever cross-party international security briefing – co-chaired by the National Cyber Security Centre’s CEO, Richard Horne.

So can this more preemptive approach staunch the flow of cyber-attacks on the UK? In my experience of advising European and Asian governments on cybersecurity matters, the problem is that nothing is ever urgent – until everything is.

Cyber-attacks could shatter public trust

A key worry for British ministers is that an attack on government systems could shatter public trust. Imagine welfare benefits going unpaid, tax returns being ignored and health records frozen amid a major ransomware crisis.

The new plan prioritises central government digital services including tax, benefits, health records and identity verification. Pledging £210 million in additional funding, it promises to address the difficulty of attracting highly paid private-sector engineers, analysts and penetration (“pen”) testers to the public sector. Defence companies, specialist security firms and big tech typically pay 30-50% higher salaries.

While establishing a Government Cyber Unit is welcome, its phased rollout to 2029 feels too leisurely amid the level of threats the UK (and other countries) now face. Groups linked to Russia and China in particular are dramatically increasing the volume and sophistication of cyber-attacks. They combine state resources with criminal ecosystems to exploit the vulnerabilities of years of IT under-investment much faster than most cyber-defences can adapt.

Rapid developments in AI technology are also making the threat more severe – for example, through highly personalised phishing attacks and use of deepfakes. Defenders are struggling to keep up with the scale and constantly changing nature of these threats.

Who leads the way on cyber-defence?

The US is in a league of its own when it comes to cyber-defence. The federal government alone spends an annual US$25 billion (£18 billion) on defending its IT systems, compared with the UK’s £2-2.6 billion.

Australia’s budget – A$6.2 billion (£3.2 billion) – also exceeds the UK’s, despite its much smaller population. It enforces strict rules such as 12-hour critical incident reporting and, most importantly, has prioritised investing in new technologies.

Countries that are ahead of the cybersecurity curve show the same ingredients work: mandatory rapid reporting of incidents, serious investment in AI-powered monitoring, real-time sharing of information between government and private sectors, and strong international partnerships.

What came as a shock to Estonia in 2007 has been hitting European institutions and infrastructure for years now. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago, it has woven cyber operations much more closely into its hybrid warfare playbook. In 2022, there were more than 650 documented attacks by pro-Russian groups, of which only 5% targeted Ukraine – the rest focused on Nato and other EU countries.

In contrast, China has tended to prioritise stealthy, long-term espionage, including the UK Ministry of Defence payroll breach in 2024. Iran has focused on aggressive disruption, and North Korea on seizing funds through cyber heists – the most successful of which stole US$1.5 billion in cryptocurrency by hacking into the Bybit crypto exchange.

To keep pace, the UK needs to lean harder into its alliances, including with Nato and the EU. It should insist on compulsory AI-threat training across government and key industries, and show more willingness to expose attackers publicly. A timely but measured response should at least raise the risk (and cost) of the next cyber-attack for its state-sponsored perpetrators.

Thames Valley Police is assessing allegations that Prince Andrew shared confidential reports from his role as UK trade envoy with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein

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The monarch has expressed his “profound concern” regarding allegations surrounding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s behaviour and has indicated he will “stand ready to support” police enquiries should they require assistance, Buckingham Palace has announced.

Thames Valley Police have confirmed they are evaluating claims that the King’s brother allegedly passed on sensitive documents from his position as Britain’s trade envoy to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The rekindled scandal engulfing both the Royal family and Westminster has displayed few indications of subsiding since American authorities’ recent release of millions of records linked to the paedophile financier Epstein.

A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace stated: “The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s conduct.

“While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect.”

“As was previously stated, Their Majesties’ thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse.”

To date, the Palace has not been contacted by Thames Valley Police concerning the allegations, which pertain to Andrew’s tenure as Britain’s special representative for international trade and investment. The Prince and Princess of Wales have publicly addressed the Epstein scandal for the first time on Monday, with Kensington Palace confirming they were “deeply concerned” at the “continued revelations” and that their thoughts “remain focused on the victims”.

The revived controversy that has engulfed both the Royal Family and Westminster shows no signs of abating following the recent disclosure by American authorities of extensive documents connected to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Kensington Palace verified that William and Kate have been “deeply concerned” with their attention remaining on those impacted by the scandal. This represents the first time the couple’s stance on the issue has been publicly declared.

The prince is presently en route to Saudi Arabia to commence a three-day solo visit to the Middle Eastern country, with his first day planned alongside Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Before his departure, a Kensington Palace spokesperson confirmed: “I can confirm that the Prince and Princess of Wales have been deeply concerned by the continued revelations. Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.”

The most recent tranche of documents released by the US department of justice has sparked a wave of allegations against Andrew and prompted authorities to launch an investigation into Lord Peter Mandelson regarding alleged misconduct in public office. Among the allegations are accusations that Epstein facilitated the travel of a second woman to Britain for a sexual encounter with Andrew, and that the Duke and Epstein approached an exotic dancer for a threesome at Epstein’s property in Florida.

The latest claim alleges that Andrew shared sensitive briefings from official trips to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Singapore during his tenure as the UK’s trade envoy.

One email, sent in November 2010, was forwarded by Andrew just five minutes after receiving it from his then-special adviser, Amir Patel. On Christmas Eve 2010, Andrew copied Epstein into an email containing a confidential briefing about investment prospects related to reconstruction projects in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Graham Smith, chief executive of the anti-monarchy organisation Republic, has confirmed that he reported the allegations to the police.

A Thames Valley Police spokesperson said: “We can confirm receipt of this report and are assessing the information in line with our established procedures.”

In 2022, the late Queen stripped her son Andrew of his honorary military titles. Last year, he gave up his HRH designation following substantial controversy surrounding the civil sexual assault case brought by Virginia Giuffre, who took her own life last year.

Ms Giuffre alleged that she was forced to have sex with Andrew on three separate occasions, claims which he vehemently denies. These instances allegedly included when she was 17 and also during an orgy, after being trafficked by Epstein.

Despite his unwavering assertion that he had never met her, Andrew paid out millions in 2022 to settle the civil sex case with her.