Fire crews are battling a massive blaze mere hours after the fire service issued an urgent wildfire warning for the weekend
Rachel Vickers-Price UK and World News Reporter
02:23, 24 Apr 2026
Fire crews are battling a wildfire in Aberdeen mere hours after the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) issued an urgent bushfire warning for the region across the coming weekend.
Six firefighting appliances and specialist vehicles were dispatched to the brushfire at nature reserve Kincorth Hill on Thursday evening, April 23.
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Emergency services rushed to the nature reserve, known locally as ‘The Gramps”, after receiving calls that alerted them to the fire shortly after 6pm. Smoke could be seen stretching for miles over the Scottish city, while nearby residents took to social media to report they were “choking” on the fumes and the smell of burning, according to The Sun.
The cause of the blaze is not yet known.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said: “We’ve received a call regarding an incident at Gramps on Kincorth Hill in Aberdeen.
Crews were still at the scene in Aberdeen two hours later, according to an update shared by the SFRS at 8:40pm advised nearby residents “to keep their windows and doors closed as a precaution”.
The Gramps overlooks Scotland’s ‘Silver City’, and offers panoramic views of the city, the North Sea, and the surrounding countryside.
Mere hours before the wildfire broke out, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), in conjunction with the Scottish Wildfire Forum (SWF), issued wildfire warnings for large areas of Scotland for the coming weekend, spanning Western Scotland and “Central and Eastern Scotland.
The SFRS warning states: “Western Scotland: starting Thursday, 23 April, there is a very high risk of wildfire. From Friday, 24 April to Sunday, 26 April, the warning will increase to an extreme risk of wildfire.
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“Central and Eastern Scotland: from Friday, 24 April to Sunday, 26 April there will be a very high risk of wildfire. “
Head of Prevention and Protection for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service deputy assistant chief officer Kenny Barbour said: “Wildfires have the potential to destroy property, landscapes and wildlife, which is why it is so important that members of the public use extreme caution under these conditions.
“People living in the impacted areas should avoid lighting outdoor fires and be mindful that one spark can spread, causing a large amount of damage. Remember, there’s no such thing as a harmless fire.”
Mr Barbour added: “Share wildfire warnings with your family, friends, and visitors. And if anyone spots a large outdoor fire, please report it immediately by calling 999, providing your location, and any other relevant information so we can respond quickly.”
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Wildfires are usually sparked by humans, with only a spark needed to start a wildfire. A cigarette butt out of a car window or coals from an unextinguished campfire are prime examples of intended fire starters.
BBC Scotland weather presenter Gillian Smart echoed concerns from Scottish fire crews, confirming that conditions this week are ideal conditions for wildfires.
“The current dry spell – combined with strong sunshine at this time of year, and the brisk winds we’ve had at times this week – make for a dangerous mix in terms of wildfire risk,” she said, as per the BBC.
“All of these factors can really dry out vegetation.”
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She added: “Spring generally presents ideal conditions for wildfires, with the combination of new growth and typically drier ground. And with high pressure remaining in charge into next week, and very little rain in the forecast, the risk will be ongoing.”
Last month, the Scottish government warned that the northern nation was facing a grim wildfire season, with a ban on campfires and barbecues introduced in early April to the Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands in an attempt to reduce the fire threat.
It comes after the EU has issued a warning that passengers face a ‘very serious crisis’
Airlines have announced they are cancelling and cutting back flights to and from the UK amidst massive rises in jet fuel costs and fears over shortages. The BBC has reported that 6 carriers so far which fly to the UK have said they’re going to operate fewer flights.
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It comes after the EU has issued a warning that Europe faces a “very serious crisis” as aviation fuel supplies begin to dwindle due to the conflict in Iran, and holidaymakers may need to alter their summer travel plans.
“Unfortunately, it’s very likely that many people’s holidays will be affected, either by flight cancellations or very, very expensive tickets,” Dan Jorgensen, the EU energy commissioner, told Sky News. “Even if we do everything we can do, if the jet fuel is not there, then it’s not there.”
Jorgensen added: “[Currently] it is primarily a crisis of prices and not yet a crisis of supply, but unfortunately we cannot be sure to prevent a crisis of supply, especially on jet fuel in the future, if the crisis continues.”
The International Energy Agency has cautioned that significant supply problems could emerge within the next five to six weeks. Airlines are already implementing measures to curb demand: the Lufthansa Group, among Europe’s largest airline operators, has confirmed the scrapping of 20,000 flights over the coming months. Meanwhile, other carriers are hiking ticket prices on long-distance routes to offset rising fuel costs.
The price of flights has been rising since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, a worry for anyone planning a summer holiday.
Which airlines are cancelling flights?
Airlines that serve the UK which plan to operate fewer flights.
KLM
Air Canada
Asiana Airlines
Delta Airlines
Lufthansa
SAS
The following companies have said they don’t plan to change their schedules:
British Airways owner IAG
EasyJet
Jet2Holidays
Flight prices
While some airlines have cut back on the number of flights to save money, others have said they will start charging more per passenger or will put up charges for luggage.
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These include:
Air France-KLM
Indigo
Pakistan International Airlines
Thai Airways
Turkish Airlines-Sun Express
Virgin Atlantic
Rory Boland, travel editor at consumer publication Which?, says overall cancellations will be a very small proportion of the millions of flights in and out of the UK, and the changes will be targeted on routes where there are multiple flights a day so that passengers can be rebooked on to an earlier or later flight. Low-cost Spanish regional airline Volotea has come under fire for saying it will add a surcharge to tickets it has already sold and is being challenged by local consumer rights groups.
Holiday giant Tui said the Iran war cost it around 40 million euros (£34.8 million) last month after it was forced to repatriate thousands of holidaymakers and staff.
Europe’s largest travel operator cut its profit forecast and suspended revenue guidance as a result, sending it shares lower.
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The company is among travel firms to have been significantly disrupted by the conflict in the Middle East, which began at the end of February. It is also among airline firms to face pressure from a surge in jet fuel prices after the conflict pushed up the price of oil.
On Wednesday, Tui told shareholders that it had to absorb 40 million euros worth of costs in March due to “repatriation efforts and related operational disruptions”.
Following the start of the war, Tui repatriated around 5,000 passengers from two cruise ships anchored in ports in Abu Dhabi.A lot of the industry’s jet fuel supplies come from the Gulf region, and most of it passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed to shipping since the start of March.
PANAMA CITY (AP) — Businesses have doled out up as much as $4 million to move boats through the Panama Canal with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, according to the Panama Canal Authority, in a move that has created a seismic shift in global trade flows.
While passage through the waterway usually comes at a flat rate via reservations, companies without reservations can cross by paying an additional fee in an auction for slots, which are awarded to the highest bidder rather than waiting for days off the coast of Panama City.
That price has ballooned in recent weeks as Iran and the United States have bottlenecked the key shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, and demand for those slots has skyrocketed. Ships have increasingly traveled through the Panama Canal as shipments are rerouted and buyers purchase from other countries to avoid commerce through now-treacherous Middle Eastern waterway.
“With all the bombings, the missiles, the drones … companies are saying it’s safer and less expensive to cross through the Panama Canal,” said Rodrigo Noriega, said lawyer and analyst in Panama City. “All of this is affecting global supply chains.”
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Meanwhile, Noriega said Panama’s government is “maximizing what it can earn from the Panama Canal.”
The average price to cross through the canal ranges between $300,000 and $400,000 depending on the vessel. Previously, to get an earlier crossing, businesses would pay an additional $250,000 to $300,000. In recent weeks, the average additional cost has jumped to around $425,000.
Ricaurte Vásquez, the canal’s administrator, said another company that he would not name paid an extra $4 million when its fuel vessel had to change its destination because of ongoing geopolitical tensions.
“It was a ship carrying fuel to Europe, and they redirected it to Singapore, and it needed to get there because Singapore is running out of fuel,” he said.
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Other oil companies paid an excess of $3 million in addition to the crossing fee to accelerate their passage in the face of soaring oil prices.
Vásquez said that ships have not piled up at the canal, but rather the costs can be attributed to last-minute shifts and greater urgency by vessels needing to get from one point to another faster in the wake of larger trade chaos.
Vásquez emphasized that the costs were not a blanket market rate, but rather a temporary toll shouldered by companies.
“They decide how high a price to go,” Vásquez said.
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At the same time it’s earning more money from the new business, Panama’s government has also been dealt a blow by the geopolitical struggle.
On Wednesday, the country’s foreign ministry accused Iran of illegally seizing a Panama-flagged vessel from the Italian company, MSC Francesca, in the Strait of Hormuz.
Panama, a country with one of the world’s largest ship registries, said the ship was “forcibly taken” by Iran. It wasn’t immediately clear if the boat remained in Iranian custody.
“This represents a serious attack on maritime security and constitute an unnecessary escalation at a time when the international community is advocating for the Strait of Hormuz to remain open to international navigation without threats or coercion of any kind,” it said.
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Noriega, the analyst, said that the amount companies are paying to cross the Panama Canal may only go up if the conflict continues to stretch on, as oil prices are already skyrocketing. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil briefly jumped above $107 this week, soaring from around $66 a barrel a year ago.
“No one really foresaw the potential effects (the war) would have on global trade,” Noriega said.
Neil Donaldson, commercial director of growers Hall Hunter, which has farms near Wokingham and Wargrave in Berkshire and Godalming in Surrey, said: “Cool nights and warm sunny days create the perfect conditions for growing sweet, full-flavoured strawberries — and that’s exactly what this weekend’s forecast is bringing.
Footage appears to show an Albanian gang clad in balaclavas filming themselves on TikTok raiding a cannabis ‘crop house’.
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The chilling post shows masked men using infrared scanners on normal suburban streets to locate the heat from cannabis grow lamps. Once they have found a target, they make their way inside.
They pose for the camera with a violent trap song accompanying the footage with ‘f*** you’ written as a caption as the gang appear to rob the house.
The clip shows a bewildered-looking man in shorts and a T-shirt who apparently lives or works in the house being intimidated by the gang. The camera focuses on the raiders clutching cannabis plants.
Footage apparently showing an Albanian gang ‘robbing’ grow houses is getting views on TikTok (Picture: TikTok)
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The ‘crop houses’ are kitted out with high-tech lighting and heating to aid the growth of the plants in what can be a highly lucrative business.
The shocking footage is one of a series of videos featuring the men in what seems to be a celebration of their criminal lifestyle. The house, allegedly a ‘crop house’ in which cannabis is grown on an industrial scale, features several times on the account.
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The property, which looks like an ordinary suburban house, cannot be identified.
The gang uses infrared cameras to identify their target (Picture: TikTok)
The video is believed to have been shot in West Yorkshire, according to the online footprint of the account holder who posted the clip.
Other footage posted on the same TikTok account shows a masked member of the ‘gang’ climbing up the side of a house before clambering through an open window.
Another shows an apparent reconnaissance mission in which the gang hide and watch a crop house.
Some of the footage is tagged with Albanian flags and accompanied by slogans in Albanian.
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Once inside gang appear to get a worker to load cannabis for them before they leave with the drug (Picture: @TikTok)
The rap themes are charged with violence and knives are mentioned. But no weapons are featured in the clips.
In one of the films the ‘gang’ members are seen holed up in what appears to be a safe house.
The latest ‘crop house’ footage is chillingly similar to that posted by another Albanian ‘crew’ this time in east London.
In Barking, a heavily armed Albanian gang called the Hellbanianz filmed themselves brandishing weapons while flaunting cash, Rolexes while driving Ferraris.
They ran the Gascoigne estate where their ‘soldiers’ lived. Their brash online posts eventually led the police to the door and some members have been convicted.
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Meanwhile the Metro exposed a criminal network operating in Southgate, north London, where people trafficking and drug deals are bringing in huge sums.
A source told Metro: ‘We call it little Tirana around here. The Albanian gangs have a grip on the community and there is a lot of fear about being taken out [killed]. They have taken over some of the businesses and have threatened others.
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‘There have been connections with people trafficking, protection rackets and drug dealing. It’s their turf for sure and they hide in plain sight.They have taken over some of the businesses and have threatened others.
‘There have been connections with people trafficking, protection rackets and drug dealing. It’s their turf for sure and they hide in plain sight. We know who they are and where they operate out of. It has been reported to the police they need to get a grip of this.’
Southgate is being called ‘Little Tirana’ after the Albanian capital, by locals (Picture: John Dunne)
Other areas of the capital have also seen the rise of Albanian gangs.
When raiders stormed an Albanian cannabis factory to steal the product their machetes and knives proved no match for the handguns the Albanians pulled to defend their territory.
A court heard that the robbers who were trying to steal from the factory in Croydon had ‘brought knives to a gunfight’.
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The Shqiptare is the term used by the National Crime Agency to describe the Albanian crime syndicates.
They sell huge amount of cocaine smuggled into into the UK via Latin America.
It is believed they run a majority of the estimated £5bn cocaine market. They are buying for up to £5,000 a kilo according to police estimates. They started selling for less profit than their rivals to corner the market.
The supply of cocaine and other drugs on an industrial scale has provided the Albanian mob with funds to almost ‘buy up’ communities.
Taken just before 4pm on Monday, April 20, the driver stops at a red light and a pedestrian starts to cross Trinity Street.
But, moments after – a car crashes with a white Mercedes which pushes it towards the pedestrian island as a woman crossing stops and quickly rushes back across the road.
The Mercedes crashes through the pedestrian signal light and the traffic light before coming to a stop on the road located between Aldi and Bolton One.
A spokesperson said: “Just after 4pm on Monday 20 April, one fire engine from Bolton Central attended a crash involving seven vehicles on Trinity Street, Bolton.
“Firefighters assisted North West Ambulance Service and Greater Manchester Police to help make the surrounding area safe and were in attendance for around half an hour.”
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said there were no crimes recorded and only minor injuries in the crash.
Philip Rycroft, former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union, said there needs to be a “clear-headed appraisal of what is in the country’s best interests” and that life outside the EU had not lived up to lofty expectations.
Writing in The Times, he warned the road back into the bloc would be “long and windy”, but that the “argument is there to be won”.
Philip Rycroft led the Department for Exiting the European Union (PA)
But the newspaper reports several senior figures in government are pressing for the policy to be reviewed ahead of the next general election.
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Mr Rycroft cited figures from recent YouGov polling for the campaign group Best for Britain, which shows that 53 per cent of people are now in favour of rejoining the EU, while 32 per cent are opposed and 14 per cent don’t know.
“Most economic analysis suggests that we have taken a significant hit to GDP as a result of leaving the single market,” he added.
“The precise number, and the impact on our export performance to the EU and beyond, might be subject to debate, but no one can credibly claim that we have marched to the sunny uplands of sustained economic growth as a consequence of Brexit.”
He said it was “not hard to see” why people may be “falling out of love” with Brexit.
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“We are seemingly no nearer achieving an immigration policy that commands general consent,” he continued, in reference to the Leave campaign’s promise that leaving the bloc would allow the UK to take back control of its borders.
While he insists that the government wants to develop closer ties with the EU, particularly as the world becomes a more dangerous place, Mr Thomas-Symonds ruled out any sort of deal that would lead to the UK and the EU entering a customs union.
He said that even a bespoke version, like the agreements the bloc has with countries like Turkey and Norway, is off the cards.
The Coronation Street icon has been undergoing treatment for cancer while being seen leaving the ITV show on medical grounds
Beverley Callard has told fans she has been forced to miss the I’m A Celebrity… South Africa final on medical advice after being diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.
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Ahead of Tuesday’s (April 21) episode of the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here spin-off, it was confirmed that a campmate had to leave the South African savanna unexpectedly on medical grounds before it was revealed that former Coronation Street star Beverley Callard was the one who informed her campmates that she was unable to stay in the competition.
She was seen gathering her fellow campmates, Beverley was seen telling them on the ITV show: “I didn’t feel very well this morning… and the medics have advised I can’t return to camp. I’ve got to go home.” With tears in her eyes she added: “I don’t want to go. I’m absolutely gutted. I wanted to finish.”
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Following the episode, Beverley, who is famed for playing Liz McDonald in ITV’s Corrie, and first took part in I’m A Celeb back in 2020 when the programme was relocated to a Welsh castle, took to Instagram to share a video message with her followers. In it, she said: “Well, I’ve just watched by exit on I’m A Celeb and it made me cry all over again. Of course, I didn’t know then that I had cancer but I just knew that it was the last couple of days there that I hadn’t felt very well.
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“What happened was, I went into the Bush Telegraph and apparently, I lost consciousness for a little while. I just wasn’t feeling myself. They took me to a medical hut and they were amazing; they really looked after me and they said you can’t go back.” She added: “And I said ‘don’t say that, don’t send me home, I’ll be fine. I wanted to succeed and make it through to the end but that was the start of everything. It’s made me really emotional but I will beat this. I will beat it.”
Beverley, who publicly shared her breast cancer diagnosis in February, also captioned the post: “That was such an emotional watch… especially knowing what I know now. I wanted to prove that age is just a number and I feel so proud of what I achieved. Just got to get through this real life trial now #imaceleb.”
Now, Beverley has confirmed that she is no longer able to attend the show’s live final on Friday (April 24) after doctors had confirmed it was unsafe for her to fly from her base in Ireland to London for the programme. Sharing the news in an Instagram video, the soap star said: “Yesterday, I should have flown to England to get ready for the I’m A Celeb final.
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“I was so excited and looking forward too it but on medical advice, I can’t go, I am gutted. I was dying to see them all and it would have been brilliant. I can’t go and yesterday, the flights were booked and everything but no, they said, it is basically too long a day with flying there and then a very late night [with filming]. I will be watching.”
While not able to attend in person, she added: “I will be on Zoom chatting to everyone. So I’ve got to make the best of a bad job but I am resting and I am doing as I am told. Thanks to everybody.”
Mohammad Shethwala and his wife Sadikabanu Tapeliwala were a young couple with a dream, selling everything they had and borrowing money off neighbours to fund a move from India to Britain, where she had been admitted for a Masters at Ulster University’s London campus.
She graduated in 2023, the same year they had their first child Fatima, and both husband and wife found enough work to slowly build a life together, even sending small amounts back home to support the family and friends who had believed in them.
Shethwala, who was back in London at the time, was devastated. Now, 10 months on, he is faced with another loss: the prospect of being forced to leave the UK, the country where he says every memory of his young family was made.
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“I have already lost them,” the 28-year-old tells The Independent in an interview. “I want to hold on to the dream at least and fulfil it, to honour the memories I have.”
Mohammad Shethwala, 28, lost his wife in Air India crash in June last year (Supplied)
When Tapeliwala was granted her student visa in 2022, Shethwala joined her in Britain as a dependant. Their route to the UK, he says, was financed not by wealth but by sacrifice.
“We did not have money at the time to afford education in the UK,” he says. “People in our neighbourhood lent some money. Both our mothers also sold their jewellery, their life savings, to send us abroad.”
His father ran a small shop in India, earning no more than Rs 10,000 ( £78) to Rs 15,000 (£118) a month. Tapeliwala’s father sold goods door-to-door by bicycle.
Once in Britain, the couple worked relentlessly. His wife’s student visa limited her hours, Shethwala says, so he took multiple jobs, including delivery work. They spent their first year paying back the debt to those neighbours and friends. “After that, we were able to support both families,” he says.
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At first, they had not planned to settle permanently. But Britain began to look less like a stopgap and more like a home.
Mohammad Shethwala moved to the UK with his wife Sadikabanu Tapeliwala in 2022 for her further education (Supplied)
“When we spent some time here, we decided it would be wise to settle here,” he said. “Our family background in India was not strong. But since moving here, we were able to support both her family and mine. We would not have managed it in India.”
By spring 2025, the family’s plans appeared to be falling into place. According to Shethwala, his wife had secured work connected to her studies and was preparing to switch into the Skilled Worker visa route after probation. The move would have given the family a more secure footing.
Then came a family wedding in India. Because both adults were working, they had hoped to travel together, he says, but could not get leave at the same time. He stayed behind. His wife and daughter went ahead.
On the morning Tapeliwala and Fatima were due to return to Britain, he says he called them to check in.
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“She was at the airport,” he says. “My family were urging that I leave my daughter behind with them [in India]. My wife asked me if I should. But I was hesitant. My daughter was already away from me for a month.”
Their daughter, Fatima who was born in the UK in 2023, also died in the plane crash in India (Supplied)
Fatima, he recalled, was crying at the airport. His wife said she had to go, to complete their check-in, and that she would call again once she was seated on the plane.
“That call never came,” he says.
Later that day, as he prepared to collect them from the airport, messages began arriving about a crash. He phoned the friend who had booked the tickets. Then came confirmation from multiple sources: it was the same flight.
“I was speechless,” he said. “I could not grapple with what was happening.”
Shethwala booked the first available flight to India, and until he reached there relatives tried to shield him from the worst news, insisting his wife and daughter were safe and in hospital.
(EPA)
When he arrived in Ahmedabad and went to the civil hospital, staff asked for a blood sample.
“I assumed, if they are taking my blood sample, it is to identify the body,” he says.
A friend who had travelled with him then admitted the truth. “We did not tell you,” Shethwala recalled being told, “because we wanted you to reach India safely.”
His daughter’s remains were handed over to the family on 17 June. His wife’s followed later, on 21 June.
“It was given in a coffin,” he says. “I did not open the coffin before cremation.”
For days, he said, he could not accept what had happened.
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“It was like a nightmare and that at any moment, I will wake up and find them both right in front of me.”
Then, as he describes it, another blow followed the first.
“The moment I managed to stabilise, the visa issue came like a dagger,” he said.
Because his immigration status depended on his wife’s visa route, her death left his own future uncertain. According to Shethwala, had she lived, the family expected to move onto a Skilled Worker visa. He says he still has her job offer letter.
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“If my wife were alive, we would have had the skilled worker visa,” he said. “Things would have been different.”
He later applied for Further Leave to Remain on compassionate grounds, arguing that his circumstances were exceptional. A psychiatric report detailing his mental health was submitted with the application, he says.
A man takes visuals of a charred building at the accident site of Air India flight AI171 that crashed into a residential area near the airport on June 12 in Ahmedabad (AFP/Getty)
But on 9 April, around nine months after the crash, he received notice that his application had been refused. He says he was then granted temporary immigration bail while expected to leave the country.
“I was not given an opportunity to even appeal,” he says.
The Home Office has not publicly commented on the individual case, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
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In reported correspondence, officials are said to have maintained that Shethwala’s circumstances did not meet the threshold for exceptional leave to remain in Britain and that support, including mental healthcare and family connections, would be available in India.
As Shethwala describes spending sleepless nights in a flat once filled with nursery rhymes, he is speaking to lawyers about whether he has any recourse to appeal.
“We believe this is a genuine humanitarian case and request fair and kind consideration,” says Ayush S Rajpal, case manager at Chionuma Law.
“Our client has lived in the UK for four years and built his life there with his wife,” he tells The Independent. “He is working and settled, and it would be very difficult for him to find similar work in India. After losing his wife, he is facing financial and emotional difficulties and is under psychiatric care. In these circumstances, we kindly request that he be allowed to remain in the UK on compassionate grounds.”
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Building of BJ medical college damaged after the Air India plane crash (Namita Singh/The Independent)
Shethwala says returning to India would not bring peace.
“My relatives kept saying, ‘What will you do in London? Just return,’” he says. “But to leave the country for me is to also leave those memories bound to this place.”
He says he is not trying to exploit a loophole or rewrite the rules. He says he simply wants time: time to work, time to recover, time to remain in the place where the future he and his wife imagined briefly felt possible.
Four teenage boys have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 44-year-old was killed in a crash – this is a breaking story
07:35, 24 Apr 2026Updated 07:44, 24 Apr 2026
Four teenage boys have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 44-year-old was killed in a crash near a pub.
Emergency services were called to Accrington, Lancashire, on Wednesday evening after reports that a man had been struck by a car. The victim, named as Matthew Weller, was found with serious injuries near the Nag’s Head pub, at the junction of Blackburn Road and Birch Street, Lancashire Police said. He was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
The force said a VW Passat car failed to stop at the scene and was later found abandoned in Barden Road. Following enquiries, detectives arrested three 17-year-old boys from Accrington and one 18-year-old man from Blackburn on suspicion of murder.
The Boys star Erin Moriarty said she hurt herself several times while filming the latest season as the shoot coincided with her Graves’ disease symptoms peaking.
Moriarty, who plays Annie January aka Starlight in the Prime Video series, shared the details on her social media shortly after the release of the fourth episode of the fifth and final season.
“Okay, so: season 5, episode 4 of The Boys is one of the most important episodes I’ve ever shot,” she wrote on Instagram, over a picture of her bandaged leg.
“Unfortunately, that part of the season coincided with my health issues peaking before my diagnosis. I am saving you the gnarly part of this picture but not long after this episode, I started to lose the ability to walk.”
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“The numbness in my feet led to a lot of falling,” she continued. “The night before we shot my segment of this episode, I fell and shredded up my knee.”
Erin Moriarty says she hurt herself several times while shooting for ‘The Boys’ (Instagram/Erin Moriarty)
The actor revealed her Graves’ disease diagnosis in June last year, saying it had left her nauseous and exhausted. “One thing I can say: if I hadn’t chalked it all up to stress and fatigue, I would’ve caught this sooner,” she said at the time, adding that she felt her strength increasing within 24 hours of beginning treatment.
Graves’ disease is a form of hyperthyroidism. It is caused when the body’s immune system produces antibodies that disrupt the thyroid gland to make excessive thyroid hormone.
According to the NHS, symptoms may include a fast heart rate or palpitations, tremors, diarrhoea, difficulty sleeping, weight loss, irregular periods, and feeling hot, hungry, or anxious.
Some patients may experience neck swelling or bulging eyes, known as Graves’ ophthalmopathy.
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Erin Moriarty plays Annie January aka Starlight in The Boys (Prime Video)
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On Thursday, Moriarty said her injury and the worsening symptoms affected her ability to fully enjoy the production.
“I barely have any [behind-the-scenes] shots of this season, especially as things worsened,” she said.
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“This isn’t a pity post. It’s mostly to say: f*** autoimmune disease. F*** it so hard. F*** the ignorance surrounding it, too. I can’t remedy that ignorance but not being outspoken about it occasionally feels wrong.”
The Boys, which debuted in 2019, explores what happens when superheroes become as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians, and as revered as gods – and abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good.
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