By PERKIN AMALARAJ, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER

Published: 11:13 BST, 22 July 2026 | Updated: 17:04 BST, 22 July 2026

A French modelling scout with close ties to the late US financier Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home outside Paris, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Under investigation in France, Daniel Siad, 69, was one of several French men accused of aiding Epstein to traffic and abuse women.

Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators, but had denied the allegations, saying he wanted to be heard and give his version of events.

‘An investigation to determine the cause of death was opened on Monday evening following the discovery,’ the Nanterre prosecutor’s office said.

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An autopsy will be carried out as part of the probe, after he was found dead in his home in Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine. 

Facing several complaints, including allegations of rape, Siad was the subject of an investigation conducted by the office specialising in combating human trafficking.

Siad’s name appeared in more than 1,000 documents released as part of the declassified Epstein files.

He likened his efforts to recruit women to fishing.

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Daniel Siad, 69, (pictured) was one of several French men accused of aiding Epstein to traffic and abuse women

Siad claimed before his death that he only knew Jeffrey Epstein (pictured) in a professional capacity 

‘In This busyness I feel like fisherman some time I cache quick, some time no fish,’ Siad wrote to Epstein in 2014.

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Siad had insisted that the American convicted sex offender had ‘taken advantage of his trust’.

Born in Algeria, he allegedly acted as a pimp for Epstein, working with him from the early 2000s to 2017. 

He scouted models from across the world. In 2022, a French woman told police how she had been caught in Epstein’s grasp after Siad introduced her to the paedophile financier. 

And in May, Siad told French media that he knew and connected young women to Epstein. 

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Despite this, he claimed that Epstein always presented himself in a professional manner as a casting director for Victoria’s Secret. 

He told CNN last month he always ‘trusted’ Epstein and only had a business relationship with him. 

Siad claimed: ‘I trust in him, I believe him. This guy is a professional person – he needs somebody. He knows I have good connections around. 

Jeffrey Epstein (pictured, centre, with two unknown women) was infamous for controlling the women in his life

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Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell seen in an undated photo

‘If I find the right person who can assist him, I am honoured.’ 

The now-dead model scout said that he visited Epstein’s £10million Paris flat, nicknamed Avenue Foch, but only went for business meetings. 

He claimed: ‘Each time I presented him with models, and I left with the models.

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‘I only had professional relations with him. I don’t know his private life.’ 

French authorities in 2020 arrested modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel after allegations he procured women for the US billionaire. He was found dead in prison in 2022.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

Lily Allen’s phenomenal musical comeback with West End Girl caused quite the stir.

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Lily Allen fans will see the star as “she’s never been seen before” in a “redefining” new documentary.

Pop star Lily Allen was a cultural icon in the noughties, and was recently catapulted back into the spotlight after an eight-year break, thanks to her scandalous hit album West End Girl.

Now, the Not Fair singer is at the heart of an upcoming biographical documentary “offering an intimate portrait of the life and career of a global icon and voice of a generation”.

Set to be released on Prime Video, the film will take a deep dive into her “extraordinary journey” and why she has remained a cultural force for the past two decades.

The special will feature interviews from those closest to the star to give subscribers a real insight into the musical legend’s life away from the cameras.

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The official synopsis teases: “As a pioneering woman in modern music, Lily’s sharp wit and candid storytelling directly paved the way for a generation of today’s biggest female artists.

“This is a story of resilience, reinvention, and an artist reclaiming her narrative on her own terms.

“This is Lily Allen as she’s never been seen before. Raw, real, and redefining what it means to thrive in the spotlight.”

So far, a release date for the Lily Allen documentary hasn’t been confirmed by Prime Video but it will be sometime in 2027.

Her shocking fifth studio album West End Girl was written following the collapse of her marriage to Stranger Things star David Harbour.

The famous couple first started dating in 2019, got married the following year and separated in 2025.

In her 14-track West End Girl album, she accuses Harbour of infidelity and talks about their open marriage agreement.

Harbour has since addressed the album in an interview with Variety, saying “stories are complex” and that “it wasn’t my experience”. Nevertheless, he does “respect her creation of art to channel her experience”.

The Lily Allen documentary will air sometime in 2027 on Prime Video.

Le Mans Crescent was packed with cameras, cast members and production crews as filming got underway for the iconic brand.

Actors promoting Jaffa Cakes mingled with performers in racing gear, who dashed through the crescent to the cheers of assembled crowds.

Filming for Jaffa advert in Le Mans Crescent (Image: NQ)

Colourful racers sprinted through the historic crescent while crowds cheered them on, creating a scene that was more Hollywood than Hobnob.

The campaign transformed one of Bolton’s most iconic locations into a film set, leaving passers-by with plenty to digest.

McVitie’s is one of the UK’s best-known food brands owning various biscuit favourites such as Jaffa Cakes, Hobnobs and Digestives.

The Bolton shoot forms part of a wider production being filmed across several locations throughout the UK, with crews scheduled to wrap up work in the town later today.

Location Manager, Chris, praised the support the production team received locally and said Bolton had once again proved itself an ideal filming destination.

Filming for Jaffa advert in Le Mans Crescent (Image: NQ)

He said: “We’ve had great support from Bolton Council with this because it was a very tight turnaround.

“I work in Manchester a lot and come to Bolton quite a bit and it’s always nice to come up here because the response we get from the people of the town is just great.

“It’s a lovely place to film.”

According to the team, viewers should be able to see the brand-new advert on TV screens very soon.

Passers-by stopped to watch the action unfold throughout the morning, with many curious to discover which company was behind the production.

The filming is just one of many shoots over the last few months as Bolton has been recently celebrated as the new ‘Hollywood of the North’ which has helped make £1.2m for the borough economy.

Le Mans Crescent in particular has become one of Bolton’s most recognisable filming locations.

The landmark setting has featured in a range of major productions over the years, including Peaky Blinders and Coronation Street, while the old Bolton Magistrates’ Court has regularly been used for courtroom scenes in television dramas.

Early in the month crews were spotted filming The Woods, a new Netflix programme by Harlan Coben with the popular streaming giant announcing it was adapting another one of the bestselling author’s novels.

According to the team, viewers should not have to wait too long before spotting the new McVitie’s advert on their television screens.

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

In Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Odysseus (played by Matt Damon) is lost not only at sea, but within his own memories. On the island of the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron), eating lotus flowers offers him relief from the trauma of Troy, allowing him to forget the war, his comrades – and eventually even his wife and son.

While it’s a point of focus in Nolan’s film, the episode of the so-called “Lotus eaters” is, in the scheme of Homer’s Odyssey, very minor. Occupying scarcely more than 20 lines of verse in a poem of over 12,000, the story of the magical, memory-wiping fruit is no more than an unfortunate escapade.

The cyclops, in the economy of the poem, is far more significant. The famous trick, by which Odysseus makes the cyclops believe he is called “Nobody”, rendering the creature’s cries for help useless (“Nobody is attacking me!”), encourages Odysseus, at a safe distance, to reveal his name. The cyclops’ subsequent curse becomes a major motive force for the rest of the poem.

Christopher Nolan’s new film adaptation of the Odyssey has reversed this. Although the cyclops still represents the clash of civilisation and brutishness, the episode in the film is relegated to a symptom of a wider problem.

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When finally reunited with his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), Odysseus confesses his guilt over the destruction of Troy. To trick a people into accepting a gift – the Trojan horse – which spells their doom, in the name of the goddess Athena, is to violate the divine sanctions that keep human behaviour decent. If the cyclops does not know “the laws of Zeus” (in Greek, xenia: the bonds of behaviour between guest and host), what of it? The Trojan war has collapsed any meaning these notions once had anyway.

Into the gap steps the lotus – in Nolan’s film it’s a flower, and not a fruit as in Homer’s poem. In Nolan’s film, the magic flower is used by Calypso to purge Odysseus’ trauma. What she unleashes is, however, a crippling addiction. Only through painstaking narrative can Odysseus slowly piece together the memory of his men, and only by touching an artefact from his past can his memory of his wife be restored. The whole first half of the film, then, is a lotus-induced dream.

The traumatic Odyssey

How are we to handle memories we do not like? If you could remove them, would you? For many, memories are so painful that chemical remedies are sought.

Among UK veterans of combat, 11% have reported alcohol misuse problems. In the US, some million veterans suffer from addictions to alcohol or drugs.

Nolan’s Odysseus is a commentary on this. Confronted with a world he has played a pivotal role in destroying, Odysseus loses himself in lotus addiction. Calypso’s motives are left tantalisingly ambiguous. Part nursemaid, part temptress (but somewhat sexless in comparison with Homer’s version), she regulates the supply of the drug she has introduced him to (we see her both encourage and forbid the use of lotus).

Both forgetting and memory have their pitfalls. Neither the bitterness of dwelling on a lost past, nor the blanking out of suffering, are the same as healing. In Homer’s Odyssey, a pivotal moment features Odysseus listening to a singer tell the story of the Trojan war at a banquet. It’s the only time Homer actually mentions the notorious wooden horse. Much is made of Odysseus’ response: he covers his face and he weeps. The song of the Sirens too introduces Odysseus to pain and regret, to memory both lost and betrayed.

In the film, unlike the poem, narrative therapy – the telling of the tale – does not suffice. The solution is rather the rediscovery of powerlessness – of a small human’s place in a vast world. Nolan’s Odysseus is a figure of controlling power, whether successfully, in the case of the attack on the Cyclops, or unsuccessfully, as Circe (Samantha Morton) implies when his men raid her home. Research has found that surf therapy can help veterans suffering with PTSD. In a similar way, Odysseus’s trauma is healed by understanding, and yielding to, what he cannot control after all.

Odysseus is described by Homer in the first line of the poem as polutropos: “of many turns”, “complicated”, “resourceful” – the word is notoriously untranslatable. Whatever this means, in Nolan’s imagination, Odysseus is not a warrior. He is a culture hero – a figure who changes the world – and it is responsibility for the downfall of a culture which has marked him with trauma.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Stanley Davison: A Decade in Paint at Hartlepool Art Gallery will run until Saturday, October 10, bringing together paintings produced by the self-taught Hartlepool artist over the past ten years.

The exhibition features a wide range of works inspired by the town and its history, with recognisable locations including Fish Sands, the old cemetery on the Headland, the derelict Steetley Pier and Hartlepool harbour all appearing in the collection.

An example of the work by Davison that will be on show in Hartlepool Art Exhibition. (Image: Stanley Davison, Hartlepool Art Gallery)

Many of the paintings on display are rooted in local life, drawing inspiration from family, friends and familiar faces from across Hartlepool.

A distinctive feature of Stanley’s work is his use of artists’ mannequins and shop-window figures instead of human subjects.

The recurring characters give the paintings a unique quality, creating scenes that range from playful and imaginative to reflective and thought-provoking.

The exhibition also includes inventive reworkings of famous paintings by artists such as Caravaggio, Velázquez and Cézanne, reimagined in contemporary Hartlepool settings and featuring local people.

An example of the work by Davison that will be on show in Hartlepool Art Exhibition. (Image: Stanley Davison, Hartlepool Art Gallery)

Stanley said: “I’ve been painting since I was ten years old and I’ve never really stopped, in digs, in the sitting room and in a box bedroom with the easel fixed to the wall.

“Everything I paint comes from this place and the people in it, family, friends, people I’ve worked with and drunk with over the years.

“I had my first exhibition here in Hartlepool in 1981 and it’s good to be sharing my work here again.”

Visitors to the gallery will also have the chance to buy any of the paintings on display.

Councillor Rob Darby, chairman of Hartlepool Borough Council’s Housing, Growth and Communities Committee, said the exhibition highlights both the town’s heritage and the talent of one of its artists.

“Stanley’s work captures the spirit, character and history of Hartlepool in a truly distinctive way,” he said.

“This exhibition is a fantastic opportunity for residents and visitors alike to enjoy, and even buy, the work of a very talented local artist whose paintings celebrate the town, its heritage and its people.

“We are delighted to welcome this major exhibition to Hartlepool Art Gallery, and I would encourage everyone to come along and see it.”

Entry to the exhibition is free.

Hartlepool Art Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm.

Fans are definitely enjoying the couple

Olivia Attwood has left fans “obsessed” as they catch another glimpse of Pete Wicks following their “hard launch”.

The 35-year-old TV star recently split from the footballer after two years of marriage, but Olivia has since opened up about the details which led to their split after over ten years.

The Loose Women star first met Bradley at a nightclub back in 2015. Olivia went on to star in Love Island in 2017, but Olivia and the footballer reconciled after her short romance with fellow Islander Chris Hughes came to an end.

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Bradley popped the question in Dubai in 2019 and the pair got married in June 2023 at the luxury five-star hotel Bulgari in Knightsbridge, and have since been living together in Cheshire.

Since the split, Olivia has been seen with good friend and Sunday Roast podcast co-host Pete Wicks. While their relationship status remains a secret from the public, photos of Olivia and Staying Relevant podcast host Pete emerged last month of them enjoying a romantic holiday at a resort in the south of France.

Now, the pair have been seen ditching the UK together again. Olivia is currently out in Ibiza and has been joined by Pete and her pals for the trip. But she’s also been surprised by her sister, Georgia, with her arrival on the party island kept a secret from the Loose Women star until her arrival.

Taking to Instagram, Olivia shared a video of the moment she was approached by her sibling, having no idea she would be joining them. The TV star screamed before she launched from her seat in shock, and that’s when the camera moved to show Pete sitting next to her at the table.

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Since then, Pete posted a set of black and white pictures showing off their sizzling romance. The first black and white snap saw them lying together on a yacht while sailing across the water, and another showed Olivia lying in Pete’s lap as he kissed the top of her head.

Discussing their latest trip together, Pete gushed: “It was wonderful to see her, it has been two and a half weeks…. so we had a fabulous time, I have really hurt my back, because I was backflipping off boats, we went for lovely dinners, we went to clubs, we drank a lot.

“It was magical, is probably the best way to describe it. Obviously, she’d been out there filming for a couple of weeks so I hadn’t seen her, so yeah, and I really missed her and it was lovely.”

Now that their relationship is seemingly public, fans have been excited over catching the odd glimpse of Pete as Olivia shares carousel images of her trip away.

One fan penned: “So obsessed with you two”, as another agreed: “I am loving this new chapter of your life so much (sic) obsessed with love xx”.

Wright, 61, of Haslemere, Surrey, Barker, 58, of Chiltington, West Sussex, 65-year-old Massey, of Brandhill, Shropshire, and 64-year-old Gregory, of Southampton, are accused of conspiring to implement artificial no-flow events at waste water treatment works between 2012 and 2017.

Police believe he was assaulted near Whiteabbey Presbyterian Church and after being found unconscious with a serious head injury, he was rushed to hospital where he passed away three days later

A Co Antrim man today denied a charge of assisting offenders arising from the death of Colin Crawley.

Connor James Mullen, 39, appeared in the dock of Belfast Crown Court where he was arraigned on the single charge.

From Glenville Court in Newtownabbey, Mullen was charged that on February 12, 2023 knowing other persons had committed manslaughter, he ‘did an act with intent to impede their apprehension or prosecution.’

When asked how he pleaded, Mullen replied “not guilty.”

The charge relates to the death of 40-year old Newtownabbey man Colin Crawley.

Police believe he was assaulted near Whiteabbey Presbyterian Church and after being found unconscious with a serious head injury, he was rushed to hospital where he passed away three days later.

Earlier this month, two men from Newtownabbey appeared alongside each other where they denied a joint charge of manslaughter.

Sean Cowler (37) from Abbeyglen Crescent and 31-year old Michael Coiley from Glenville Park were both charged with unlawfully killing Colin Crawley on February 12, 2023.

After the joint charge was put to them and when asked how they pleaded, both men said “not guilty” at same time.

Following Mullen’s arraigned today, Madam Justice McBride re-listed the case on September 18 when she said “all matters can be reviewed together.”

The senior judge then addressed Mullen and told him that as he was on continuing bail he could “leave the dock.”

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“I began my career in fashion in Dublin, so returning here feels deeply personal”

Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson has said it is a “dream come true” to be bringing Dior to Ireland.

Dior will present the Fall 2027 Show at Trinity College Dublin in December, marking the first time the Magherafelt-born fashion designer will present a collection in Ireland.

The collection will be unveiled against the backdrop of the university’s Old Library, an 18th-century building housing a world-class library and cultural institution – it is also the first time the fashion house will have had a show in Ireland.

Co Derry’s own Jonathan Anderson became creative director of Dior’s women’s, men’s and haute couture collections last year.

Anderson, who founded his own JW Anderson label before transforming Loewe into one of fashion’s most influential luxury brands, has become one of the industry’s biggest names.

Announcing the show, he said: “Showing at Trinity College Dublin is a dream come true. I began my career in fashion in Dublin, so returning here feels deeply personal.

“To present this collection in such an extraordinary setting – at an institution with such an important cultural history – is a real honour.”

The announcement imagery shows a shamrock along with a quote from Dublin-born Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of the American edition Harper’s Bazaar from the 1930s to 1950s, reading: “It’s quite a revolution, dear Christian. Your dresses have such a new look.”

This comes off the back of the news earlier this month that Anderson designed Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s custom Christian Dior Haute Couture wedding outfits.

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This year’s birthday photo is more formal than last year’s, which had a rural setting and showed the prince in a countryside-style gilet and wearing a friendship bracelet in Norfolk.

The more grown-up look comes as George, now a teenager, gets ready to start secondary school in September.

The prince will follow in his father Prince William’s footsteps and go to Eton College, an elite private school where entry usually begins at the age of 13.

Prince William, interviewed when he was aged 18, had spoken of enjoying his time at Eton. The boarding school for boys is also close to where the Wales family live on the Windsor estate.

Prince George’s uncle, Prince Harry, and great uncle, Earl Spencer, also studied at Eton.