Sarah Wilson dislikes the term ‘grooming gang’. She would prefer the men who stole her childhood to be known less euphemistically. ‘They were monsters: child rapists, paedophiles. To call them “groomers” softens their crimes,’ she says.

For five years, from the age of 11, Sarah was enslaved to Muslim men who plied her with alcohol and Class A drugs until she was insensible, then raped her.

The first assault took place in her primary school playground, where she was forced to perform oral sex on a man; the location emphasising both her vulnerability and – although it was past school home time – the flagrant disregard of the authorities who might have protected her.

Now 34, Sarah’s fight for justice has been long and arduous. It was not until 2024, more than two decades after the first of a series of heinous crimes was committed against her, that she was finally given a voice.

And hers is strident and forthright. Courageously, she re-lived the horror of her abuse to secure the convictions in court of seven of the men – she estimates the true count to be around 100 – who raped and abused her.

She has given evidence in three separate trials at Sheffield Crown Court and her abusers were given sentences of between six and 25 years. The most recent ended in February this year and saw taxi driver Riyasth Hussain, who raped her twice when she was 13 or 14, jailed for 20 years.

Meanwhile, a two-week trial in September 2025 had found Obaidullah Omari, 46 – who had also abused Sarah – guilty of three counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault. He was given a 19-year prison sentence. Her abusers formed part of a notorious criminal network in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, that flouted the law and were ignored by police until the National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood in 2014 finally began to bring them to justice.

Between the ages of 11 and 16, Sarah was abused by grooming gangs in Rotherham who plied her with drugs and alcohol. She is seen at 14 years old

Now Sarah, who has waived her legal right to anonymity, is steeling herself for yet another fight. She has been told that under the Government’s new Sentencing Act of 2026 – aimed at freeing up extra space in our overcrowded prisons – Hussain and Omari, perpetrators of sickening abuses against her, as well as other women and children, could be eligible for release in just six and five years respectively.

‘I’m just so angry,’ she tells me. ‘If they’re released this early I’ll have been fighting for justice longer than they’ve spent in prison. I’m actually frightened of Hussain. He’s a very dangerous individual; completely unhinged. He didn’t groom me or try to befriend me, but whenever he saw me, he raped me. I’m frightened that if he comes out he’ll kill me.

‘In my mind he’s the most dangerous of all the men who abused me. I relived the trauma of what I endured as a child in court, and now this is another trauma I’ve got to face. I’ve looked Hussain in the eyes and thought: “In the end I won, you b******.”

‘But if he’s released after six years, he’ll have won.’

Indeed, such is the widespread fury about the early release scheme that last week Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced an ‘urgent review’ of the policy ahead of its planned start in September. While Sarah ‘welcomes’ the review, she fears it will not go far enough. ‘We don’t yet know if dangerous offenders like the men who abused me will be exempt from the scheme,’ she says.

‘Rapists and paedophiles should serve their entire sentences. I don’t care what colour their skin is, what religion they are: if you abuse a woman, man or child you should serve your whole sentence.

‘If it was up to me, Hussain and Omari would never see daylight again. They’re monsters who have never shown any remorse.

‘They would carry on offending if they were released. If you’re attracted to children, you always will be. I was frightened for my life when I was a kid. Now I’m frightened all over again – this time of retribution.’

Sarah was first given hope that justice would prevail when Baroness Jay reported in 2014 on the sexual exploitation of hundreds of girls in Rotherham, by Muslim men.

‘When I started co-operating with the National Crime Agency, I felt sure I’d finally get justice for the little girl no one would fight for. Although I’d been to the police before and been ignored, as a grown woman I knew they couldn’t crush or silence me anymore.’

Indeed, Sarah, who suffers from congenital heart disease, was so determined to testify in court, she begged her medical team to defer open-heart surgery so she could stand in the witness box.

Reluctantly they agreed and, after the last trial ended, she underwent a 12-hour operation. The scar bisecting her chest where her sternum was opened testifies to their ‘wonderful’ work.

‘I knew that every word I said in court was true,’ she continues. ‘I’ve got a strong sense of justice and, when Omari and Hussain were sentenced, I felt I’d achieved it. But now I’m fighting for justice again. We need a system that is weighted in favour of survivors, rather than offenders.’

Obaidullah Omari, 46, was found guilty of three counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault. He was given a 19-year prison sentence

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A trial which ended in February this year saw taxi driver Riyasth Hussain, who raped Sarah twice when she was 13 or 14, jailed for 20 years

Sarah, a mum to two young children, is one of five Yorkshire women who have signed a letter to the Government urging it to exempt perpetrators of sexual abuse from early release.

Today she recalls how her young life descended into hell.

She was 11 when she was introduced by a 14-year-old girl to two young men of Pakistani heritage, and forced to perform oral sex on one of them. Friendless and bullied at school, she was flattered by the attention of the older girl: ‘Today I want to kill that girl. She enticed me and encouraged me. She was told to recruit younger girls because she’d become too old for her abusers. She did what she was told.

‘After the sex act I felt disgusted and dirty, confused. I was too young to consent to anything.

‘But people who haven’t been sexually exploited don’t understand that, at the beginning, you also feel a sense of belonging. You become friends with men who are older than you. Some of them drive cars, they pay you compliments, give you food, cigarettes, then drugs. My mum recalls that I came home with gifts of jewellery and make-up.

‘Suddenly I felt accepted, as if I was part of a group. But you have to give something back: your body.

‘Then it becomes, “We own you” and you’re given heroin, amphetamines, cocaine until you’re dependent. In reality I was just a piece of fresh meat, recruited by an older girl whose so-called “boyfriend” liked having sex with children. Eventually, I was driven round the country, trafficked and gang-raped.’

When she was 12, she lost her virginity through rape to a 30-year-old man. The perpetrator, Mohammed Zameer Sadiq – now 52 – was already serving a 20-year sentence for sexual offences against women and other children when, two years ago, he was convicted of the attack on Sarah and given a 15-year sentence.

Three men violated her in quick succession. ‘I was raped on a bench and it really hurt me. They’d say, “If you don’t do this we’ll take your phone off you.” Or they’d take my phone anyway and leave me stranded.

‘By the time I was 12, I had the numbers of 177 gang members in my phone. When they demanded, I went to them; I didn’t dare disobey. They’d batter me or threaten my family if I did.’

Sarah’s distraught mum Maggie, now 64, a lone mother to four children holding down two jobs, was desperate to wrest her daughter from the abusers.

Maggie confronted one of them: ‘She actually got him by the throat,’ says Sarah. ‘She was horrified but completely helpless. He just laughed in her face when she threatened to report him.

‘Mum really tried her best. She went repeatedly to the police when I went missing. Eventually the police said they’d fine her for wasting their time and being a nuisance. She was told I’d made a “lifestyle choice”, that I was a “dirty little prostitute”.

‘Actually I was a child. Only 12. I had no choice. And I was permanently intoxicated. What else was Mum supposed to do?’

I ask her to pinpoint the worst thing that happened to her: the memories come back as bleak snapshots. ‘I was driven to Birmingham and taken to a house. They marched me upstairs to a room with a filthy mattress on the floor. You’re given drink and more drink. Drugs. Then men raped me, one after the other, maybe 12 of them.

‘I remember focusing on a cobweb in the corner. I made my body go limp and my mind go blank. You do what you have to do to survive. If you don’t, you’re f*****. It all becomes a blur.’

So it was that Sarah’s childhood was stolen.

She was decried as a prostitute but she was never given money. She wonders now if cash did, in fact, change hands among her abusers.

She truanted from school – she left without qualifications, although she wanted to be a nurse, an ambition she still hopes to realise – and, aged 12, was sent to a children’s home for her own ‘protection’.

But the people who were meant to be her guardians actually became facilitators.

‘It got even worse for me because the children’s home didn’t even report me missing. The staff didn’t give a s***.’

By the age of 16, the gangs were tiring of her – she was ‘too old’. Broken, scared and defiled, she was discarded.

Sarah’s life, quiet now, revolves entirely around raising her two sons, and she has rebuilt her relationship with her mother

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It is a measure of her steely resolve that she has since rebuilt her life, resumed her education, written a book about her experiences and is raising her two sons to be thoughtful and caring members of society. She has also rebuilt the relationship with her mum, who is now an integral part of her family life.

Sarah’s manner is warm, her views uncompromising and trenchantly expressed. Her life, quiet now, revolves entirely around the children she so palpably adores. She sets them a good example – does not drink, party, take drugs.

But her vulnerability is evident. She is still prey to flashbacks, nightmares and eating disorders.

‘I either eat too little or too much. I take medication to sleep, pills for anxiety.’

It is smells that awaken the most potent memories: ‘A certain aftershave that one of my perpetrators wore. I get a whiff of it and the reaction is physical. I feel sick. A cherry-scented air freshener in a car. I cannot tolerate it. I cannot get in a car that smells of the air freshener.’

She says she’s speaking now ‘for the children who are our future’.

‘I feel I have no choice but to speak out against this new law,’ she says.

‘I’d say to the Justice Minister who supports it: “Imagine if it was one of your own children who had been abused. It can happen to any child, from all walks of life, if they are vulnerable. Would you want that paedophile rapist freed early to walk our streets?”’

Violated by Sarah Wilson is published by Harper Element.

A British woman whose body was found inside a suitcase in an abandoned building in Athens sent a final text to her family telling them that she wanted to be alone, it emerged today.

Police in Greece believe that the people who killed Elisabeth Jane Ross used her phone to cover up her death by sending a string of misleading messages to her family in a bid to buy time and escape.

Elisabeth, 38, from Scotland, was found dead inside somebody else’s suitcase by a homeless man in the Kypseli district of the Greek capital on Saturday, July 18.

But detectives say that from July 15, three days before her body was discovered, somebody sent messages to her family pretending to be her.

The texts claimed that she ‘needed some time to herself’ and that she ‘wanted to be alone for a while’.

Investigators say the phone, which remains missing, was active in the Athens area until around 24 hours ago, when Elisabeth was formally identified.

A police source told Greek media: ‘The suitcase did not belong to the victim, as she did not have any large luggage with her. This means that it is possible that genetic material or fingerprints will be found in the suitcase that will help the authorities find the perpetrator or perpetrators.’

Officers are poring over CCTV footage from around the building where Elisabeth was found. Due to the weight of the suitcase containing her body, they believe the killers are likely to have been staying nearby.

Pictured: The abandoned building where Ms Ross was discovered 

The alarm was raised around 1pm on Saturday after a homeless man notified the police that he had spotted a suitcase and something coming out of it, which ‘looked like a human limb’. 

The body was later identified as 38-year-old Ms Ross, who had flown from Cyprus to Athens where she was staying with friends. 

She had flown from America to Europe on June 29.

Ms Ross was last seen just before the alleged murder on July 15, and around the time that forensic scientists believe the crime took place.

It has also been claimed that the British woman’s phone was being used up until the point she was identified by media. 

One Greek officer said: ‘The phone was being used. Text messages were even sent obviously with a view to making people believe she was still alive. 

‘We are treating the building as a crime scene.’ 

Authorities are waiting for the result of toxicological tests saying they are likely to uncover how Ms Ross died. 

The initial examination of the body showed no obvious injuries or signs of struggle, while no identification was found on her. 

Greek authorities then took fingerprints but found no match in the national database. They then discovered they were registered in American databases.

According to police, the victim was around 5ft 4in with reddish hair tied in a bun, wearing black shorts and a T-shirt. 

Her shorts bore the name of a French university, prompting Interpol to be alerted.

Her identity was then confirmed by the Interpol office in America, which informed the Hellenic Police that the body belongs to a British woman with the initials E.R, born in February 1988. 

Greek news outlets released photos of the 38-year-old woman on Wednesday.

Investigators have established that the woman flew to Greece on June 29 from the United States after travelling via Cyprus.

Local outlets released a photo of the 38-year-old, as investigations are ongoing to determine her cause of death

The initial examination of the body showed no obvious injuries or signs of struggle, while no identification was found on her

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Police have requested passenger information from the airline she travelled with to determine if she was with anyone, and are checking local accommodation registries for reservations under her name. 

Officers estimated that her death occurred between five and seven days before the body was found.

Elisabeth arrived in Greece from Cyprus around three weeks before she was found dead

One Greek police officer told The Sun that authorities were shocked at the discovery.

He said: ‘To find a foreign national dead in a suitcase here in the heart of Athens is a first. In the history of Greek-British relations, it is unprecedented.’

Greek authorities will be working closely with the Cyprus Police on this investigation, while an autopsy is expected to be carried out to determine the cause of death. 

The British Embassy in Greece and the woman’s father have been notified of her death. 

Police wish to speak to her father to gather information about her recent activities.

An FCDO spokesman told the Daily Mail: ‘Our thoughts are with Elisabeth’s family during this difficult time. We are providing consular support and are in contact with the local authorities.’

A Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘We are aware of the death of a Scottish woman in Athens and are liaising with authorities in Greece. Officers are providing support to her family in Scotland.’

Few things say British summer quite like a cold pint in a sun-soaked beer garden – and from clifftop terraces to remote countryside pubs, some spots offer views and experiences that are hard to beat.

With thousands of pubs across the UK, choosing where to enjoy your next drink can be tricky. But travel site Locals Insider has revealed its ultimate beer garden ‘bucket list’ for 2026, highlighting the standout spots worth visiting this summer.

The ranking looked at pubs across England, Scotland and Wales, scoring each beer garden on its scenery, uniqueness, atmosphere, reputation and overall experience.

‘The UK has an incredible pub culture, and this list highlights some of the beer gardens that deserve a place on every pub lover’s bucket list,’ Locals Insider spokesman Martin Danemaq said.

1. Anchor Inn, Devon

The pub overlooks the Jurassic Coast and Lyme Bay

Set in the aptly named village of Beer is the Anchor Inn which has been crowned the top beer garden to head to. 

The cliffside establishment looks out over the Jurassic Coast and Lyme Bay.

It earned the number one spot for its incredible sea views and traditional fishing village charm. 

The judges also felt it had one of the country’s most impressive pub backdrops. 

2. Tŷ Coch Inn, North Wales

Tŷ Coch Inn, in North Wales, ranked second and is a beachfront establishment

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The beachfront pub Tŷ Coch Inn ranked second overall with its stunning views of Cardigan Bay. 

Situated in Porthdinllaen, the beer garden can be reached via a coastal walk or by boat. 

Locals Insider said the pub narrowly missed out on the top spot. 

3. The Old Forge, Scottish Highlands 

The Old Forge, in the Scottish Highlands, placed third and is surrounded by mountains and lochs

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Known as the most remote pub on the mainland, The Old Forge placed third. It can be found in the small village of Inverie in the Scottish Highlands. 

The pub is surrounded by jaw-dropping landscapes from mountains and lochs to raw wilderness. 

It has been community-owned since 2022 and with little road access, it’s best to reach the pub by foot or ferry.

4. The Gurnard’s Head, Cornwall

The Gurnard’s Head in Cornwall ranked fourth, it’s located between St. Ives and St. Just 

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Located near Zennor, Cornwall, The Gurnard’s Head placed fourth with its Atlantic-facing terrace.

Painted a bright mustard yellow, the pub is hard to miss and is surrounded by Cornish countryside and coastal views. 

It can be found between St. Ives and St. Just.

5. The Perch, Oxford

The Perch, located in Oxford, has a riverside pub garden and placed fifth

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The Perch, in Oxford, is a charming establishment and one of the oldest pubs in the historic city.  

Visitors can enjoy its riverside pub garden beside Port Meadow, which offers a peaceful spot to relax away from the hustle and bustle.

The pub’s website reads: ‘In the summer, our garden is the envy of the whole city.’ 

6. The Ship Inn, Fife

The Ship Inn, in Fife, placed sixth and offers views of Elie Harbour and the Firth of Forth

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Scotland’s second entry – The Ship Inn in Fife – ranked sixth overall. 

The beachfront pub boasts scenic views of Elie Harbour and the Firth of Forth, making it the perfect spot for summer evenings by the sea. 

7. The Pandy Inn, Herefordshire

The Pandy Inn, Herefordshire, ranked seventh and overlooks the Golden Valley and Black Mountains

The oldest pub in Herefordshire, The Pandy Inn, ranked seventh and parts of the building date back to the 12th century. 

It has been serving customers as an inn since the 17th century and boasts a rural pub garden. 

Pub goers can sip a pint as they soak in sweeping views across the Golden Valley and Black Mountains.

8. The Tan Hill Inn, Yorkshire Dales

The Tan Hill Inn, situated in the Yorkshire Dales, ranked eighth and is the tallest pub in the UK

Britain’s highest pub, The Tan Hill Inn, sits 1,732ft above sea level on the Pennine Moors.

It ranks eighth with its beer garden overlooking Swaledale, in the Yorkshire Dales.

The inn dates back to the 17th century and is packed with character, from exposed beams to a stone-flagged floor. 

9. The Stag on the River, Surrey

The Stag on the River, in Surrey, placed ninth overall

Just over an hour from London, The Stag on the River ranked ninth. 

Located in Surrey, visitors can enjoy a pint in its charming beer garden overlooking the River Wey. 

10. The Stackpole Inn, Pembrokeshire 

Rounding off the top 10, The Stackpole Inn in Pembrokeshire makes the list

The Stackpole Inn, in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales, rounded off the top ten beer gardens. 

Located in a picturesque spot surrounded by national park scenery, it offers a lovely spot for a drink outside. 

The pub is near Barafundle Bay, one of Wales’ most beautiful beaches. 

Hundreds of holidaymakers have been evacuated as firefighters battle large wildfires in London and Suffolk. 

The blaze on Dunwich Heath, which began at around 5.30pm yesterday, is spreading rapidly in the direction of Sizewell B nuclear power station, which is about 2.5 miles away. 

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service said it was working hard to protect holiday homes – with around 200 caravans at the Cliff House Holiday Park evacuated overnight. 

Meanwhile, in Romford, east London, around 30 acres of grassland were destroyed in a large fire yesterday.

Around 100 firefighters were also called to another blaze in Rainham, where around four acres of land were damaged. 

Britain is at risk of ‘exceptionally severe’ wildfires, experts warned yesterday – with parts of England left bone-dry after weeks of hot weather.

Around half of the country has been placed under exceptionally serious’ drought, with temperatures reaching as high as 35C yesterday.

Amber heat-health alerts have also been issued for the East Midlands, the east, south-east and London as the mercury rises once again this summer. 

People have been urged to avoid the area and to keep their windows and doors closed due to the smoke.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue has declared the blaze a major incident ‘due to the size and complexity’.

It began in heathland near the Coastguard Cottages, which are properties on the Suffolk coastline.

Fire crews tackle a blaze in London yesterday after temperatures reached 34C

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service said it was working hard to protect holiday homes – with around 200 caravans at the Cliff House Holiday Park evacuated overnight

Although the fire is heading in the direction of Sizewell B – Britain’s largest nuclear power station – it is not believed to be a threat to the site. .

Station manager Dan Davis said: ‘Crews from Leiston attended the scene and were met with what is a large-scale, wind- driven forestry fire.’

‘The incident has subsequently been upgraded to a major incident.

‘We currently have approximately 90 firefighters on scene working incredibly hard in arduous conditions to bring this fire under control.’

Mr Davis added: ‘I’d like to provide reassurance that we are going to remain on scene until we bring this fire under control.’

It comes amid UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issuing an amber heat-health alert for the east midlands, the east, south east and London.

The alert remains in place until 9am on Thursday, with the agency previously warning that rising temperatures may increase health risks, particularly for vulnerable groups.

The increased heat has led to fears and warnings that wildfires could ‘spread rapidly’ with southern and eastern parts of England’s already bone-dry landscapes particularly at risk.

Helen Wakeham, director of water at the Environment Agency and chair of the National Drought Group, said: ‘The hot and dry weather means we are currently using water faster than nature can replenish it.

Grass in Blackheath, south-east London, has turned entirely brown

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Weeks of minimal rain and the second hottest month on record in the UK has left the fields severely parched

‘A second consecutive summer drought is an exceptionally serious situation and one that will have long-lasting impacts on our environment, wildlife and the economy.’

The Met Office assessment showed any fires could be ‘exceptionally severe’ by Wednesday if they start in parts of London, the South East and eastern England.

Fire services in England and Wales have so far responded to 706 wildfires in 2026, with more than 200 recorded in the last two weeks, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) said.

Eight wildfires are currently burning and ‘being monitored’ across the UK, with fire chiefs warning that there remains an ‘elevated risk’ of more igniting.

Separately, in Scotland, crews said they were making ‘significant progress’ tackling a wildfire in the Cairngorms that broke out two weeks ago.

A number of homes in the remote region were evacuated as plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, and vast swathes of trees, heather and grasslands have been left charred and blackened.

Speaking on the track on Wednesday, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) deputy assistant chief officer Michael Humphreys told the Press Association that fire crews are making progress in tackling the blaze.

However, he warned the risk of flare-ups remains high.

‘It’s been an absolutely devastating fire for wildlife and for the local community who have come out in force to really support us, which we really do appreciate,’ he said.

‘To control this fire, what we’ve had to put in place is a significant number of fire breaks.’

The incident happened outside York Mosque and Islamic Centre on Bull Lane at 2.19am this morning.

A 44-year-old man from York, described by police as a white UK national, was arrested following the incident.

A police guard is behind a cordon at the entrance to the York Mosque and Islamic Centre this morning (Thursday, July 30) (Image: Kevin Glenton)

No one was injured, and police said the weapon is alleged to have been an air rifle.

Police said the man left the scene in a silver vehicle, which was traced by officers, leading to his arrest.

He remains in custody for questioning.

A cordon has been raised at the entrance to the mosque and is under police guard this morning.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “It is too early to say what may have been the motivation behind this disturbing incident, but our Muslim community in York can be reassured that we are doing everything we can to establish the full circumstances.

“We are also providing high-visibility patrols in the vicinity of York Mosque as people attend for prayer.

“Our officers are due to meet with the Imam regarding the incident.”

Bull Lane is off Lawrence Street in York (Image: Kevin Glenton)

Police are appealing for witnesses or anyone with relevant CCTV or dashcam footage to contact them.

Anyone with information is asked to call North Yorkshire Police on 101, quoting reference number 12260145924.

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — Higher humidity, cooler temperatures and a forecast for rain raised hopes of relief Thursday for a parched portion of southwestern France engulfed by wildfires that have charred an area four times the size of Paris in recent weeks.

With moisture moving in from the Atlantic Ocean coast, national weather service Meteo France forecast light rain in the town of Lège-Cap-Ferret, on a peninsula that’s been a leading edge of the devastated region.

Local officials reported a “rather calm” night, with a fire that has not grown beyond the 42,000 hectares (about 162 sq. miles) already affected. Fire crews remained at “total mobilization” with 2,200 firefighters and over 20 aircraft.

Humidity that reached 80% overnight was expected to drop by midday, authorities said, though some rainfall was expected along the coast that “could reach the fire zone.”

Temperatures that peaked around 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) a day earlier were set to drop Thursday, topping out at 27 C (80 F) along the coast. An “orange” heat wave alert — the second-highest level after “red” — was lifted shortly before dawn.

The fires in the Bordeaux wine-growing, forested and tourism-heavy region are among the blazes that have swept across pockets of southern Europe in recent weeks, including Spain and Greece.

On Wednesday, authorities said three firefighters had died on the Greek island on Crete, as the wildfire emergency stretched from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean.

At the peak of the evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.

A man has been applauded for his ‘petty revenge’ on an entitled neighbour who kept parking their drive in his driveway – and it inspired others to use similar tactics

A homeowner finally got his own back on a neighbour who kept parking in his driveway – and people are calling it the perfect dose of “petty revenge”. He explained how his neighbour had been using his driveway for months, despite being asked several times to stop. Every time he confronted him, the neighbour would brush it off with the excuse: “It’s just for a sec.”

Fed up with being ignored, the homeowner decided enough was enough. Sharing his story on Reddit, he explained that he arrived home one Friday to find his neighbour’s car parked on his driveway yet again. Normally, he’d wait for him to move it or ask to shift it. But on this occasion, the timing couldn’t have been better. The man was just about to leave town for the weekend.

Instead of arguing, he quietly pulled his own car in behind the neighbour’s vehicle, completely blocking it in.

He then locked up his house, grabbed his bags and headed off, leaving the neighbour with no way of getting his car out. A few hours later, his phone started ringing.

The man said he was met with several missed calls, followed by a text message reading: “Dude, WTF??”

Rather than replying, he ignored every message and enjoyed the rest of his weekend away.

Looking back on it, he joked: “Hope he had a relaxing weekend to think things through.”

Revenge stories

His story quickly amused social media users, with many praising his response after months of frustration.

One person said: “A lady blocked my driveway the other day and left her flashers on to indicate ‘I’ll just be a minute’.

“I left from another area of my property to go to the store, 30 minutes later she was still parked there with the windows down. I dragged out the hose and sprinkler to water the flowers aimed directly at the open window.”

Another user added: “My old little old lady landlord used to hire a nine year old to throw a rock through the back window of drivers who parked in her spaces in Queens.”

A third user said: “Love it. Same happened to me many years ago. I parked my beat up old pickup truck behind his car. I parked an inch from his bumper. Then took off on a two week holiday.

“This was before smartphones. I knew my truck couldn’t be moved without my permission. I knew the cops would not get involved.

“The guy was so p***ed. He couldn’t understand. When you mess with the bull sometimes you get the horns.”

Anyone wandering down one of the main roads in Pontypridd town centre 10 days ago would have seen a blank wall on the gable end of a popular café called Rhi’s on the corner of Taff Street.

Then seven days ago there would have been scaffolding covering the site, and if they had returned on Wednesday they would have been amazed – the scaffolding is down and the most mesmerising of murals has been revealed.

The site which has been intriguing passers-by for days has been transformed from a boring cream wall into a mural celebrating one of the town’s most prolific, yet little celebrated, music icons – a young woman called Morfydd Owen. Full story here

Summer can be lovely – until a wasp turns up. Whether they present as an irritating picnic visitor or an uninvited loft guest, common social wasps are as much a part of our summer as festivals, sun cream and the growing despair of how to entertain children who’ve forgotten how to be bored.

But summer 2026 is breaking the norm, and there don’t seem to be many wasps about. As a wasp biologist, I’ve noticed it acutely, because my students need wasps for their experiments, and we simply can’t find them.

A second sign that something is wrong is the absence of wasp stories in the media. Wasps tend to be more active in warmer weather. Their colonies grow faster and bigger, and they end up making news headlines by bothering humans. This time last year – also a warm spring and hot summer – the media airwaves were filled with “plagues of wasps” stories. Now, even professional pest-controllers tell me it’s a quiet year with very few requests to remove wasp nests.

Admittedly, these are anecdotes not data: the Big Wasp Survey – the only national
wasp monitoring survey – is yet to start sampling this summer. But the signs are not good.

If data back this up, their absence worries me greatly because – love them or hate them – wasps are important in ecosystems as pest-controllers, pollinators and decomposers.

So what’s happening?

Spring started well for wasps. In the warm, dry spring a glut of glorious foundresses – new queens – emerged from hibernation to start their nests alone, carrying out all the nest building, egg laying, foraging and brood rearing. This nest-founding period is a risky time. If a new queen survives until her first brood emerges as adult workers, though, then the odds are in her favour as she no longer needs to undertake risky foraging.

But spring 2026 was strange: the warm, dry start should have been good. Warm, dry spring weather improves a nest’s chance of survival as it ensures a good nectar supply for the queen to develop her ovaries and good prey populations for her to feed the brood. But we experienced unprecedented heat for the time of year, punctuated by cold, damp days and followed by unexpectedly chilly nights.

Such weather extremes may have caused queens to abandon their nests or die, reducing the initial spring queen bounty to a more modest population.

Temperature tolerance

And then came the heatwave. And another. And another. Some insects may benefit
from this. Wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation is hoping 2026 could be a “bumper summer of butterflies” because warm, dry days mean uninterrupted foraging, mating and egg-laying.

But all insects have a thermal tolerance called critical thermal maximum (CTmax). If their CTmax is exceeded, insects succumb to desiccation, muscle spasms and eventual stupor.

For honeybees, this is around 49°C – which might sound high, yet ground surfaces exceeded 50°C in the UK heatwaves this summer. But the temperature doesn’t need to reach an animal’s CTmax to affect their productivity and behaviour. For example, bumblebee cognition and foraging efficiency are impaired by heatwaves of 32°C.

Bumblebee Conservation Trust raised concerns that 2026 may exacerbate a declining trend in bumblebee populations as flowers wither and bees fail to forage effectively.

Wasps are thought to be quite resilient to extreme weather. They are one of the most successful invasive species around the globe. And as a social insect, their thermoregulation behaviour (such as wing fanning to cool the larvae) and nest architecture (which has insulating envelopes surrounding the brood combs) may help buffer any environmental perturbations.

Insects also have waxy molecules called cuticular hydrocarbons that coat their exoskeletons protecting them from desiccation. Social wasp cuticular hydrocarbons change structure in response to heat, better protecting them from desiccation in excessive heat.

Their varied diets should also buffer them from imbalances in prey populations. However, their CTmax may be lower than other social insects – at around 45°C – which may have made them especially vulnerable to the high ground temperatures of the 2026 heatwaves.

Why are the wasps so small?

There’s something else that I’ve noticed: the few wasps I’ve seen are rather small. The adult size of many insects is fixed during their development, depending on the quality and quantity of food they receive as larvae. Wasps don’t get bigger once they’ve pupated.

The first workers to emerge in spring are usually small because the queen is limited in how much food she can provide for them alone. But by early August, the foraging capacity of the colony has increased exponentially, brood are better fed and the emerging workers are substantially larger.

So why are we still seeing “spring-sized” wasps? It’s possible that limited diversity and abundance of prey may mean their nutrition is restricted. The problem may also be more directly linked to heat. Insect larvae reared at higher temperatures will develop faster and reach pupation at a smaller size.

Global warming is thought to explain the trend in social wasps shrinking in size over the last 100 years. We could be seeing this in real-time this year.

How can you help wasps?

Share your alfresco meal with a wasp. When it approaches, don’t flap it away. Watch to see what it wants. In the absence of wild prey, it might be desperate for some protein (your picnic ham) to feed her brood. In the absence of flowers for nectar, it might be in need of something sugary (some jam) for her own nutrition.

My research team would also like you to share your wasp observations with us, so that we can better understand these important insects. Snap a photo of her eating and submit your data to the Wasp Picnic Survey 2026: Ham or Jam?. Keep the observations coming all summer. The wasps (and wasp scientists) will thank you.

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Three friends were making their way home when a misstep caused them to fall into a pit of boiling water

An ordinary evening of fun took a dark twist as it became one of the most tragic accidents in Yellowstone National Park’s history.

Sara Hulpers, 20, and her two 18-year-old friends, Lance Buchi and Tyler Montague, were working as seasonal staff at the park in the summer of 2000 and were walking back home from swimming in the Firehole River with other friends that fateful day.

As they journeyed along their familiar route home, cutting through the Lower Geyser Basin and following a worn path used by locals with no official signage, they jumped into the small streams known to be safe.

Until the three of them misjudged one of the bodies of water. The friends believed they were jumping into a shallow freshet but instead plunged into the crust surrounding Cavern Springs, an off-limits feature known to reach temperatures as high as 87 degrees Celsius.

Lance and Tyler managed to keep their heads out of the water following the fall, and crawled out of the water on their own, while Sara had to be helped by the group of friends that was walking ahead of the trio, who had all returned after hearing their agonising cries.

In later reports, Lance’s family said he remembered feeling the ground beneath them was solid before he fell a second time while trying to escape the boiling water.

The damage was already catastrophic – the young woman had suffered third-degree burns all over her body, and heartbreakingly died the next day in a Salt Lake City burn unit.

The two surviving friends were airlifted to Idaho Falls and then to the University of Utah’s burn centre, both with burns ranging from 95% of their bodies. Their survival rate was low, but not impossible, said doctors, who estimated they had a 30-40% chance of making it through treatment, given the risks of infection since the boys had little uninjured skin left for grafting.

Tyler’s grandfather and former local weatherman, Bob Welti, was at the hospital at the early stages of treatment and called the situation the “saddest” he’d ever witnessed.

Both young men endured months of surgery and skin grafts before eventually being discharged, Tyler in November and Lance in December – the latter having lost 51 pounds during his hospital stay.

Hundreds gathered in Oroville, Washington, to mourn the loss of Sara, an exemplary student at Western Washington University, weeks away from a new scholarship award.

Friends who were by her side in the last days of her life spoke of her dedication while she was alive. Yuvia Storm, 21, was one of her friends from her time at Yellowstone, said: ”She was so happy. She told me I had to be the one to spread the word that she was excited about death. Tell them I had a wonderful life – no regrets.”

During the funeral service, her father sang songs he’d written about her, and friends and family decorated the auditorium with sunflowers.

Investigations followed, but found no evidence of alcohol as a leading factor in the tragedy, and officials added that it was the first Yellowstone hot spring fatality since 1988 – although since the time of this accident (in the year 2000), two further accidents took the lives of a 23-year-old in 2016 and a 70-year-old in 2022.