Children under five may have been forced into marriage in the UK, Home Office data has revealed.   

At least 100 children aged 12 or younger have been referred to the Government’s forced marriage unit in the past five years, the figures show. 

The total includes 27 children up to the age of five, according to data obtained through a freedom of information request.

One campaigner branded the figures ‘deeply disturbing’, warning ‘there will be missing children’ when schools re-open from the summer holidays. 

Forcing someone to marry is a criminal offence across the UK and in 2023 the legal age of marriage was raised from 16 to 18 in England and Wales.

Referrals can be made to the forced marriage unit (FMU) – which operates across the UK – by police, social services and education professionals, friends, family members, colleagues or victims themselves who might need support and guidance.

The figures obtained from the Home Office cover the five calendar years from 2021 to 2025.

Data for some of the years was not disclosed due to the very small number of individuals involved, which could potentially allow them to be identified.

But the figures show that at least 100 children up to the age of 12 were referred across the five-year period, of which 62 were aged 10 or below, with 27 aged five or under.

The Home Office said a referral means some details have been provided to the unit about an actual, potential or suspected forced marriage, but that not every referral means a forced marriage has or will take place.

Dame Jasvinder Sanghera, who ran away from her home in Derby after being faced with the prospect of a forced marriage aged 14, branded the young ages ‘deeply disturbing’ – but said it can be the case a child is ‘promised to somebody from birth’, with the marriage taking place years later.

‘I know that when schools open in September, there will be missing children,’ she said. 

‘The opportunity to identify them was pre-school holidays. Is somebody going to ask where they are, or are they simply just going to go off school roll?

‘Or children will come back engaged or even married.’

The charity founder, who was given a damehood for services to the victims of child, forced marriage and honour-based abuse, said the number of forced marriages is likely to be higher as there is ‘inevitably going to be a high number of children and adults whose situations never reach statutory services’. 

The Home Office has said forced marriage is ‘not a problem specific to one country, religion or culture; there is no archetypal victim or perpetrator, and no 2 cases are the same’.

Dame Jasvinder warned of perpetrators hiding behind accusations of racism, as she insisted forced marriage is a clear safeguarding issue.

At least 100 children aged 12 or younger have been referred to the Government’s forced marriage unit in the past five years, figures show (Stock photo) 

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She said: ‘The tactics of perpetrators will be to use that. So they will try to put you on the back foot. “This is our culture. This is our religion. You’re being racist” or whatever, to put you on the back foot, to make you look the other way.’ 

She added: ‘Cultural acceptance does not mean accepting the unacceptable.

‘This is abuse. That’s why I’ve always framed it as that, as a safeguarding concern.’

She said teachers and other professionals must have the confidence to report their concerns.

Recalling an experience in recent years, during which she went into a sixth form school to talk about her own life, Dame Jasvinder said some boys walked out while a number of girls approached her afterwards to say they were facing forced marriages.

The Home Office figures also show there were nine referrals in 2022 of children aged 12 or under which had no overseas element, with the potential or actual forced marriage taking place entirely within the UK.

The Home Office did not give data for the other years, as there were between zero and five cases in each age group, meaning there was the risk of individuals being identified.

The department also declined to provide the age of the youngest person referred to the unit in the last five calendar years, saying this could potentially lead them to be identified and that disclosure ‘could potentially deter others coming forward’.

Separate data published by the Home Office in April covering all age groups showed the number of cases with no overseas element has risen in recent years.

Some 58 cases (14 per cent of the total) had no overseas element in 2025, up from 15 cases (6 per cent) in 2024 and 10 cases in 2023 (4 per cent) – which the Home Office said ‘continues to highlight that forced marriages can and do take place in the UK’.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: ‘There is nothing more important than the safety of our children.

‘Our strengthened keeping children safe in education guidance provides staff with robust information to help identify different types of abuse and harm – including abusive behaviour such as forced marriage – and clearly sets out what all school staff should know and do, and how to respond to any concerns about a child.

‘Our new RSHE (relationships, sex and health education) curriculum will also teach pupils from this September about positive relationships, staying safe, recognising and reporting risks and abuse – with different forms of abuse addressed sensitively and clearly at appropriate ages.’

Rescue teams worked overnight to reach hundreds of people believed to be stuck inside blocked hydropower project tunnels in the aftermath of last week’s flood in Nepal, as terrifying new videos of the disaster have emerged.

The unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris on the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday – blamed on a glacier collapse – has killed more than 900 people with 4,250 still missing.

Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, have been buried in shallow graves as they began decomposing in the humid weather in the plains of the Himalayan country after being swept down the mountains by the torrent.

Nepali officials said that the focus was on reaching the hundreds of workers believed to be trapped inside about half a dozen hydropower project tunnels that had been blocked by mud and rock debris.

Pictures and videos shared by rescue teams showed earth-moving equipment digging and shovelling mud and rocks under lights in the dark of the night as workers watched. 

Soldiers used torchlight in a big pit they had created to look for space to get into one tunnel.

Teams had used a pipe to begin ‘sending air through the small opening’, Nepali Home Minister Sudan Gurung said in a statement. 

Rescue workers taking part in a rescue operation near the tunnel of the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project

Nepali soldier walks inside a tunnel amid rescue operations to free workers believed to be trapped at the scene of the Langtang hydropower project

Nepali soldiers inside a tunnel amid rescue operations to free workers believed to be trapped at the scene of the Langtang hydropower project

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Nepal’s disaster management authority said that 933 people were missing from hydropower projects in the flood-hit region.

At the Upper Trishuli 3A site, rescuers broke through into the upper part of a mud-swamped tunnel, pumping air inside, then using drilling and excavator machines to dig down.

‘When members of the team descended using ropes and called out to those inside, there was no response,’ Prime Minister Balendra Shah said in an update on Sunday night.

The Nepal Army said on Monday morning that work continues to ‘clear water, mud, and sediment from inside the tunnel’.

Specialised Indian, Chinese and South Korean tunnel-rescue teams are also helping.

At another site, Upper Trishuli-1, a Chinese team ‘entered approximately 300 meters (984 feet) into the tunnel and conducted a search, recovering one body’, the Nepali Army said.

At the Chilime Hydro tunnel, where Indian teams are deployed, rescuers entered 100m inside, but then said it was blocked.

‘Farther inside, was buried with mud and soil,’ the statement added. ‘During the operation, two bodies were recovered.’

Nepali expert mountain rescue teams – who regularly aid climbers on the world’s highest peaks, including Everest – are also taking part.

The Nepal Electricity Authority said 11 hydropower stations and one solar power station, with a combined capacity of 431.1 megawatts, had stopped operating, about 10 per cent of the country’s installed electricity generation capacity.

Another 15 power projects under construction, with a planned capacity of 470 megawatts, were damaged.

The Red Cross has estimated that more than 90,000 people are likely to have been affected by the disaster, which China has linked to the effects of climate change.

On Monday, Nepali authorities said 903 people had died, with 4,247 missing, including the 933 at hydropower projects. On the Chinese side, authorities said 16 people were killed in Gyirong County and 546 were missing.

‘A large amount of debris has been deposited and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,’ Nepal army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told Reuters. ‘Our main focus is on opening the tunnels.’

Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the flood was an ‘unprecedented and devastating natural disaster’ and it remained challenging to compile a complete assessment of the damage.

‘Despite the adverse weather, difficult terrain and continuing risks, we are moving forward with determination to save the lives of our citizens,’ he said in a Facebook post late on Sunday.

He added that nearly 21,000 security personnel were involved in the rescue operations, besides civilian workers and volunteers.

An aerial view shows houses lying deluged in sludge after flash floods

Relatives console Muna Khadka, center, who lost her son Aayush Khada, in flash floods

Firefighters and sniffer dogs conduct a search for missing people along a road leading towards Gyirong Port

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, on a visit to Kyrgyzstan, said Beijing is making every effort to search for missing people following the disaster, Xinhua reported on Monday.

Beijing has said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for in Tibet, near a key border crossing with Nepal.

China’s state-run CCTV reported Beijing has mobilised more than 2,100 rescue workers and allocated at least 220 million yuan ($33million) to support relief efforts.

China has also been airdropping equipment and supplies to frontline rescuers, while its soldiers used life-detection equipment to look for the missing.

 Although Nepal has said that it does not need foreign help in general rescue and search, it has leaned on giant neighbours India and China for their expertise in tunnel rescue.

Rescue operations have been suspended several times since Friday because of bad weather and concerns that a lake formed across the Nepal-China border by the disaster could trigger fresh flooding after it began overflowing into Nepal’s rivers.

China’s state television CCTV said that another lake formed upstream by a landslide had largely drained as water flowed out naturally.

The landslide occurred 2.8km downstream from the first lake formed by debris of the glacier collapse.

Authorities are now monitoring an impact crater carved out near the site of the glacier collapse on the Nepalese side, which had expanded to 174,000 square metres by Saturday evening, state media said.

The crater had an estimated reservoir of 2.5 million cubic metres, which if breached, could lead to a chain reaction to lakes further downstream, authorities warned.

CCTV said there is risk of further landslides along the river that could create additional lakes, as investigators identified eight high-risk locations for geological disasters.

The flood was ’caused by glacier instability under the long-term effects of global warming’, the state broadcaster reported, saying it was a ‘new and prominent feature of cryosphere disasters’ on the Tibetan plateau.

Two Nepali officials told Reuters that China had not shared much information on glacier risks and water levels following a meeting to strengthen co-operation earlier this year, and they feared that a lack of data sharing could hamper future disaster preparedness. 

Three months before the wall of water, mud and rock killed hundreds when it hurtled down a Himalayan valley bordering Nepal and China, experts and officials from both countries met in Kathmandu to discuss the risk of such disasters.

At the May 27 meeting in Nepal’s capital, ten officials from Nepal and about a dozen from China, including the Tibet region where the disaster struck, discussed strengthening co-operation to monitor and respond to floods, weather and glacier-related hazards, according to an agenda prepared by the Nepali side.

People salvage belongings from their home following flash floods at Devighat in Nepal’s Nuwakot district

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Drone view of people inspecting a damaged house after the deadly flash floods and mudslide

Damaged houses stand precariously near the swollen, debris-choked banks of the Trishuli River

The participants called for joint risk-reduction measures, including inventories of glacial lakes and hazard mapping.

But the Nepali officials told Reuters they did not receive as much information as they wanted from China on glacier risks and water levels after the meeting and they feared insufficient data sharing could hamper their ability to anticipate and prepare for major disasters.

‘What we actually wanted from them, and still want, is if there are early movements of glaciers and early movements around that area, we would want to know a bit early,’ said Sauhardra Joshi, a hydrologist at Nepal’s Flood Forecasting Division, who was in the May meeting.

No officials or experts have blamed either side for the natural disaster, which will cost an estimated tenth of Nepal’s annual economic output to recover from. 

Nepali officials say the priority is to deepen co-operation with China.

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The eastbound A1036 Tower Street away from the city centre is closed this morning (Monday, August 31) after last night’s storm (Image: Kevin Glenton)

This morning, the eastbound A1036 Tower Street coming out of York city centre was closed after the junction with Piccadilly and Fishergate with traffic turning right into Lead Mill Lane, opposite The Postern Gate pub.

City of York Council is advising vehicles travelling east from Tower Street to divert via Piccadilly and Walmgate Bar.

The eastbound A1036 Tower Street away from the city centre is closed this morning (Monday, August 31) after last night’s storm (Image: Kevin Glenton)

A spokesperson for the council said it will provide an update following an inspection of the road.

The Press has contacted City of York Council.

Chelsea McGillivray, 31, from Rutherglen tragically died during childbirth after suffering a sudden cardiac event in labour — baby Tommy survived in what family called a miracle

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A family from Rutherglen in Scotland have been left “heartbroken” after a first-time mother tragically died during childbirth following what had been described as a “textbook” pregnancy.

“Amazing” Chelsea McGillivray, 31, passed away on Monday (August 24) after doctors tried “everything they could” to save her when her heart stopped while she was in labour.

Her family have described it as a “miracle” that Chelsea’s baby Tommy survived after she suffered a sudden unknown cardiac event during labour, with loved ones saying that holding on long enough to save her newborn son was “the last thing she could do for him”.

Long-term partner and Tommy’s father Jack Mitchell, 31, now faces the daunting task of raising their newborn alone, though those close to him say “he’s a natural” at parenthood.

Chelsea’s sister-in-law Lorna McGillivray, 33, described her as the “life and soul of every party”, adding that she had been eagerly anticipating motherhood. She has since launched a GoFundMe page to support Jack and Tommy, which raised nearly £50,000 in just one day.

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Lorna, who is married to Chelsea’s brother Steven, told Glasgow Live: “I’ve never seen a mum that had everything so organised. As soon as she found out she was pregnant it was like she had found her purpose.”, reports Glasgow Live.

“She was the best auntie to my two boys, so I know what kind of mum she would’ve been.”

Chelsea had displayed no signs of any health concerns throughout her pregnancy, according to Lorna, and had been preparing on the hospital ward at the Queen Elizabeth to give birth to baby Tommy when she “crashed suddenly”.

Lorna recalled: “She got to the labour suite at around 8.30am and Tommy was born at 8.39am. So all of this transpired in nine minutes. They [c-] sectioned her and got him out, and then they started CPR. They worked on her for hours, and they had consultants and specialists from all over the Queen Elizabeth and the Jubilee.

“But they just couldn’t get her back. She was here one minute talking away, and not the next.”

Lorna is convinced Chelsea’s body “held on” long enough to deliver her son Tommy in a final act before her death.

She explained: “It’s a miracle that Tommy’s here. I’ve spoken to some doctors and consultants, and this happening alone is extremely rare, but for the baby to survive is even rarer.

“I like to think her body held on long enough just to get him here safely. But obviously she never got to meet him.

“All she wanted was her wee baby, and he’s here and he’s healthy. And that’s the last thing she could do for him.”

Little Tommy was admitted to the NICU before being discharged on Wednesday, a moment Lorna described as “bittersweet”.

The heartbroken sister-in-law revealed the cause of Chelsea’s death remains unconfirmed, saying: “We know her heart stopped but we don’t know why.

“She was completely healthy as far as everyone was concerned.”

Beyond being the “life of the party”, Lorna described “glamourous” Chelsea as a devoted Rangers supporter who loved watching matches at Ibrox, and maintained close bonds with her parents and wider family. She also described Chelsea as having “the most infectious laugh”.

Following her sudden death, Chelsea’s nearest and dearest have “rallied round” her partner Jack to support him as he navigates parenthood on his own.

Lorna said: “He’s obviously grieving, but at the same time trying to learn how to be a dad. But he’s a natural – he won’t say that himself but he is. It’s bittersweet.

“But he’s got a great support around him, and we’re all there for him.

“They planned this for nine months- he knows exactly what Chelsea would’ve wanted.

“He’s strong and he’s really doing her proud.”

Looking ahead to baby Tommy’s future, Lorna added: “None of us will ever let him forget his mummy. She got him here safely, it was the last thing she could do for him.

“He’s our wee miracle and he’s going to be absolutely spoiled rotten.”

To contribute to Lorna’s fundraiser supporting Jack and baby Tommy, click here.

Gwyneth Paltrow postponed her dinner in honour of billionaire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman after huge backlash, a new report claims.

The Goop founder, 53, was reportedly planning a private ‘off-the-record’ dinner party for controversial billionaire Altman at her Hamptons home on August 29.

Insiders have now claimed that the dinner did not go ahead on Saturday following the widespread criticism.

‘The event was postponed for the time being because of the backlash. The party likely won’t happen,’ a source told People.com. 

Earlier this month Puck News shared a photo of the alleged invites for the dinner.

‘Gwyneth Paltrow invites you to a private, off-the-record al fresco dinner at her home in honor of Sam Altman,’ the alleged invite reads, listing a Goop-affiliated RSVP email address. 

Gwyneth Paltrow postponed her dinner in honour of billionaire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman after huge backlash, a new report claims 

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The invite quickly went viral, triggering a wave of backlash across social media, with one commentator on X comparing the rumoured event to ‘an episode of black mirror.’

The pushback comes amid public skepticism toward tech giants and artificial intelligence (AI) companies like OpenAI, where Altman serves as CEO.

‘Really drives home the fact that her organic, chemical-free, homemade food aesthetic was always about being elitist first and foremost. Sam Altman is literally poisoning the water, babe,’ another fan wrote on Threads.

‘I don’t think she really cares how she’s perceived politically. She’s part of the “billionaire class” and she enjoys it,’ someone else added.

‘Unless I’m forgetting someone, is Gwyneth at this point the most out of touch celebrity?’

Some questioned the purpose of the party: ‘In honor of Sam Altman” ??? Why??’  

A day later Paltrow shared a series of satirical party invitations via Instagram, each custom-made for a fictional pop culture guest.

The invites appeared to be AI-generated, featuring identical formatting to the original rumored invite shared by Puck News, while simply altering the name of the guest of honour and the RSVP email.

Earlier this month Puck News shared a photo of the alleged invites for the dinner which list a Goop-affiliated RSVP email address

The five guests of honour were Shrek, Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones, evil AI-powered android doll M3GAN, Jessica Rabbit, and comedian Courtney O’Donnell’s alter ego Chanty Beluga.

‘We’re serving swordfish burritos, cheddar foam lattes on request,’ the wellness guru wrote in the caption.

However, not all fans were amused by Paltrow’s humorous response, with one writing, ‘Stop supporting AI giants. Hope this helps, Gwyneth’

‘You love fresh organic vegetables, but don’t care if others have access to fresh water if they live by an AI data center,’ another comment read.

‘Nice try but no,’ someone else chimed in.

‘Either way tone deaf.’

However, others showed support for the star, with one fan writing, ‘No one trolls like Gwyneth.’

Despite the skepticism around AI, Paltrow herself has embraced the technology.

Earlier this year, her company Goop announced an AI partnership with performance marketing platform Adora.

Paltrow also said she engages with AI ‘all the time’ while speaking with tech journalist Kara Swisher on her Goop podcast this year.

‘I find it incredibly useful,’ she said.

In recent months she has also covered a number of AI subjects on the podcast, including ‘The Future of AI In Health’ and ‘AI and Modern Dating.’

In a 2025 video for Goop she also spoke about sometimes using AI to create recipes.

‘Lately, I’ve been asking various AI platforms for help with that kind of thing. And it’s incredible the recipes you get. You could put in what I just said but ask them for an exact recipe and you’ll get something great,’ she said.

In 2024, Paltrow launched an AI-powered meditation app which unconventionally encourages users to keep their eyes open.

In May, Paltrow’s wellness empire Goop axed more staff while announcing a ‘pivot to AI’ just 18 months after massive layoffs.

In late 2024, the actress’s wellness and lifestyle brand implemented two rounds of cuts within two months, culling around 50 employees.

And earlier this year Goop let go of around 20 more, with the rationale of ‘profitability and AI,’ Puck reported.

The layoffs were apparently ‘justified via pivot to AI workflow,’ according to the tip line on Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me Substack.

Iran and the US have traded strikes after American forces attacked two rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

The first known US strikes on Iran since late July killed two people and injured two others, according to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which vowed “response and punishment”.

US Central Command (Centcom) said its had taken “limited, precise action” against “minelaying forces posing an imminent threat in the Strait of Hormuz”.

Iran said it had struck US military bases in Jordan in response. Jordan’s army said it had intercepted eight missiles early on Monday morning.

Separately, Iran’s state TV said the Iranian army had targeted an air base in the UAE with drones.

However, the UAE’s Ministry of Defence said the reports that Al-Minhad Air Base was targeted were “unfounded”. The UAE did confirm it shot down a drone.

The US strike is the first known attack on Iran since President Donald Trump paused a renewed military campaign in late July.

Larak Island is just offshore from the key port of Bandar Abbas and sits right on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for global shipping. Some 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas used to travel through before the war began.

Iran is currently demanding that tanker traffic pass by this island for checking and reportedly forcing vessels to pay $2m (£1.5m) to cross.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the IRGC, said earlier that the attack on Larak was carried out by drones.

Hours later, Iranian media carried a statement by the IRGC saying it had attacked the US bases of King Hussein and al-Azraq in Jordan with ballistic missiles in response to the Larak Island attack.

Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday it “strongly condemned the American military aggression on Larak”, saying the strikes on bases in Jordan were a “legitimate defence”.

Meanwhile Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a statement quoted by state TV: “We are not seeking war, but we will deliver a decisive response to the aggressors,” according to AFP.

Hours after the US strike, Trump posted apparent AI videos on Truth Social showing oil infrastructure exploding.

One was captioned “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!” in reference to a major oil terminal off the coast of Iran which Trump has threatened to take. His post did not elaborate.

Trump ​said last week that all mines‌ placed in the Strait of Hormuz by Iran as part of its efforts to blockade the route had been detonated or removed. He said Iran had been warned that any ship ​or boat deploying new mines would be ​destroyed.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi described Trump’s claim as a “propaganda” deception.

Iran is facing renewed economic pressure after Washington announced a fresh sanctions campaign on 24 August aimed at further isolating Tehran and expanding secondary sanctions against its allies.

Iranian officials and state media have largely dismissed the campaign as a continuation of previous US economic measures, which they argue followed Washington’s military failure in the recent conflict.

The US is also continuing a naval blockade of Iran, which has affected Iran’s ability to export oil. On Saturday Centcom said it had disabled three vessels, boarded two and redirected 82 as part of the blockade.

The US and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran on 28 February, with Iran responding by attacking Israel, US bases and allied states in the Gulf, and effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz to marine traffic. The Iran war has now crossed its six-month mark.

It involved people who made a deal with the devil

A ritual once practiced in our county, supposedly gave people psychic power over horses. Cambridgeshire is filled with wacky tales and historic beliefs.

From the ‘lantern man’ being spotted around Wicken Fen to the ‘Shug Monkey’ who is said to stalk the roads close to the village of West Wratting, our county has a lot of folklore to its name.

One particular tale of a ‘toadman’ is a sacrilegious legend of a ploughman from 19th-century Cambridgeshire. A toadman according to Fenland folklore, is someone who made a deal with the devil which gives them control over horses. The bizarre tale gets its name from an unsettling ritual that someone would perform involving a toad.

The initial ceremony involved catching a male toad, hanging it from a thorn bush or pegging it to an anthill until its bones had been picked clean. People would then carry the bones until dried. Even more peculiar, the bones were then thrown into a running stream on a full moon at midnight. Supposedly, all except one would be swept downstream.

As unsettling as it sounds, after this appalled ritual the last remaining small fork-shaped bone would then, through insane means, grant its holder psychic control over horses, according to the local legends.

This eerie attempt at gaining power was also used in Lincolnshire. The toadman’s powers were believed to enable them to instantly calm wild or dangerous horses or alternatively turn them into an unmanageable animal.

A brave mother who fought off a shark to make sure her baby didn’t ‘grow up without a mum’ revealed her first words when she woke from a coma were ‘I love you’.

Leah Stewart, 35, spent ten days in a coma after being viciously mauled in the first shark attack at Sydney‘s Coogee Beach in over a century on June 13, 2026.

A little over two months later, the determined mother has recovered enough to sit down and tell her tale.

Ms Stewart retains vivid memories of the attack, fighting off the shark with her bare hands, her rescue, and the rush to hospital.

However, she prefers to look back on the moment when she woke in St Vincent’s Hospital’s intensive care unit to find her mother by her side.

‘I love you,’ were the first words out of Ms Stewart’s mouth following her ordeal, she told 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Ms Stewart, a teacher and mother to one-year-old daughter August, was a regular swimmer at Coogee Beach and was relatively close to shore when she was attacked by the great white shark.

She recalled coming face-to-face with the four-metre beast and seeing its ‘black little beady eyes’ moments before it sunk its razor-sharp teeth into her thigh and arm.

Ms Stewart (pictured with her partner, Fernando) recalled thinking of her daughter and deciding to fight for her life

The confident swimmer was dragged under the water and was convinced she would die, but then she thought of her daughter.

‘She’s not going to have a mum. She’s going to grow up without a mum’ she recalled thinking, which became a turning point and she fought back even harder.

‘I twisted myself around, and I just started punching it over and over and over again, just punch, punch, punch,’ Ms Stewart said.

‘It was like fighting a dinosaur, it was so big. It was like punching a brick wall.

‘I was like, ”You ugly f***er, you are not taking me away from my daughter.”’

World champion paddleboarder Charlie Verco was training near Ms Stewart when he spotted her struggling in the water.

He helped prop her on his board with one arm while using the other to slowly paddle them, backwards, to shore. He recalled being unable to know where the shark was under the water because it had turned red with blood.

Off-duty surf lifesaver Ben Heenan then saw the pair and rushed to help them, while his partner, doctor Kassandra McGregor, called Triple Zero.

Several off-duty lifesavers and medical personnel happened to be on Coogee Beach on the day of the attack (pictured are emergency services at the scene)

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Frontline trauma specialist Dr Ian Ferguson was grabbing a coffee nearby when he heard the screaming on the beach. 

The impromptu medical team managed to keep Ms Stewart alive using tourniquets to stem the blood loss. Dr Ferguson also drilled into the bone marrow of her shoulders to give her infusions of fluid and blood because they could not find a vein due to the blood loss.

‘I was hopeful that she would survive to hospital, but I didn’t think it was a given at that point,’ Ferguson recalled. 

Ms Stewart described the moment she felt herself almost slipping away as she was on the sand.

‘I… just felt like everything was leaving my body and I was going somewhere,’ she said.

‘Just as I was about to reach the end of the tunnel, I got a vision of August. I just knew I couldn’t leave her.

‘I said ”I can’t die right now, I can’t.” I know it sounds strange, but I sort of willed myself back.

‘And I opened my eyes and I could see everyone around me at that point.’

Ms Stewart’s (above) first words after waking from her coma were to her mother: ‘I love you’

Staff at the hospital were similarly sceptical about Ms Stewart’s odds of surviving.

For 10 torturous days, her loved ones waited to see if she would pull through the coma.

During that time, the 35-year-old underwent 11 surgeries for the extensive injuries to her left thigh and right arm. Her left arm had to be amputated.

Ms Stewart’s partner, Fernando, and her mother, Christine – a nurse, were constantly by her side.

She finally woke from her coma on June 23 and recalled feeling ‘really annoyed’ by a breathing tube down her throat.

‘I was waving to the nurses and anyone that was around, miming like ”Take it out, take it out, because it’s horrible,” and obviously they didn’t know what I was saying,’ Ms Stewart said.

‘Then my mum arrived. I just saw my mum and I just felt, ‘Okay, I’m alive, and Mum’s here.”

Christine was emotional when recalling the moment her daughter finally spoke.

Ms Stewart’s was the first shark attack at Coogee Beach (above) in over a century

‘Up until that point she’d been pretty sleepy, she hadn’t actually been looking in my eyes, but this time her eyes were fully aware, looking at me,’ she said.

‘Once they got the tube out, she just looked at me and she said, ”I love you.”’

Ms Stewart has spent the months since learning to walk and write again.

Thankfully, she didn’t suffer cognitive injury from the severe blood loss.

However, she still struggles to come to terms with her new disability. 

‘There’s good days and bad days. For me, I’m still coming to terms that (my arm’s) not there,’ Ms Stewart said. 

‘I get really frustrated. August will put up her hands and she’ll want me to pick her up. I’m just desperate too, I just can’t.’

But she’s doing her best to focus on the ‘small wins’. 

‘It’s about like the little things, like now I can brush my teeth,’ Ms Stewart said.

‘I’m really proud of that. It’s so nice to brush your own teeth, not someone else doing it for you.’

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT One man went for a walk in the Dinokeng Game Reserve and never walked back out when he was mauled to death by a roaming lion that tore his skin from his head in a fatal attack

A man was shredded to death by a lion while on a walk at night during his shift at work but, unfortunately for him, during the big cat’s prime hunting time.

At 30, Johannes Matshe was an employee, working for a landowner at the Dinokeng Game Reserve in Gauteng, South Africa, when he was killed on shift. It was a Sunday night, August 13, 2023, when he was dramatically torn apart by the lion, and his remains were found the following Monday morning.

The animal pounced on him and tore apart the flesh from his bones, as though the man were simply food for the night. Although, it was later revealed by the reserve’s spokesman Hartogh Streicher that employees are strictly prohibited from wandering through the park after sunset.

Images have shown the exact graphic details which appear to display the lion scalping the skin from his skull. The undisclosed graphic pictures were also thought to reveal his leg bone was poking out of his work boots, completely stripped of flesh.

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He explained: “Lions are nocturnal animals, driven by their natural instinct and hunting patterns, and may perceive a person as a normal prey species.”

According to Streicher, the employee’s remains were stumbled upon by an operations manager at the reserve, around the animal’s breakfast time at 10.37am on a Monday morning.

The spokesperson further shared in a statement: “The individual was tragically attacked and killed by lions while attempting to navigate the reserve on foot after dark…The operations manager responded promptly, confirming the unfortunate loss of life.”

At the time, the reserve shared their concerns with the welfare of their other employees and what consequences the lion should be faced with.

The statement added: “Concerning the management of the lions responsible for this killing, no decision has been reached whether they have become unnaturally dangerous, but the reserve is receiving expert advice to make the most responsible decision possible for all parties concerned.”

It’s not the first time that the South African reserve made headlines with a devastating animal death. Just a few years earlier, in 2018, a woman who was at the reserve interviewing the manager, Kevin Richardson, about his work as ‘the lion whisperer’ was killed under very similar circumstances.

The 22-year-old visitor, Megan van der Zwan, was mauled to death by a lion, which pounced on her in a ‘conversation zone’, which doesn’t enable access to the general public.

Richardson, who has appeared in a number of films as a part of his unique relationships to wild animals, shared his thoughts on the incident in 2018.

He said: “Myself and an experienced colleague took three lions walking in the reserve, as we do on a weekly basis, as part of their exercise and stimulation regiment,” he explained.

“We assessed the landscape for other Big Five animals and, as per procedure, sent out a notification that we were walking in the reserve.

“One of the lionesses charged off after an impala and must have run 2 to 2.5km, where she encountered the 22-year-old outside the car. I am devastated, and my heart goes out to this young woman’s family.”

Following the brutal attack, paramedics were called out, but it was too late, and the young woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

Twisha Sharma flies internationally at least twice a year. But she never travels with Air India.

Her reluctance to use the airline only hardened after a London-bound Air India flight crashed shortly after take-off in Ahmedabad last summer and killed 260 people.

“Since the crash there have been a lot of news articles about how the airline continues to not uphold good safety standards,” Sharma tells The Independent. “Maybe because of extra scrutiny, and maybe these things happen with every airline, but the fear factor has kind of set in.”

Her concerns reflect a broader shift in passenger attitudes towards Air India on the India-UK route in particular, according to data shared exclusively with The Independent by Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

The data shows a sharp drop in Air India’s performance on the route. The airline had posted strong year-on-year growth in passenger traffic in the first five months of 2025 but the crash reversed the trend.

Between January and May 2025, Air India flew 18 to 32 per cent more passengers on the India-UK route a month than in the corresponding months of 2024. While the numbers were still marginally higher year-on-year in July 2025, they fell every month from August to December.

The decline was particularly pronounced between August and October. Air India carried 85,024 flyers on the route in August 2025, down from 96,576 a year earlier. In September, the number fell from 100,559 to 81,291, before dropping by 14 per cent in October. The figures suggest that the fall in demand was greater than the reduction in Air India’s capacity on the route.

In August and September, the number of seats operated by Air India fell by 4 per cent year-on-year, while passenger numbers declined by 11 per cent and 19 per cent respectively.

In October, the contrast was starker. The airline operated slightly more seats than a year earlier but carried nearly 14,000 fewer passengers.

There were signs of a partial recovery during the winter season. The number of flyers rose to 107,568 in November 2025, leaving Air India only 0.7 per cent below the level recorded in the same month the previous year. In December, the number was 7 per cent lower year-on-year.

“That period is a heavy travel season – Christmas and holiday season – so the spike is noticed,” says Rajiv Mehra, general secretary of the Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality.

“This is normal, particularly for the India-UK sector. The Indigo issue may have contributed, but not much as Indigo doesn’t have a major presence on the route,” he says, referring to the cancellation of roughly 4,600 Indigo flights in December owing to problems with crew rostering and a transition to stricter pilot rest-time rules.

For passengers such as Asha Raj, the Indigo disruption was indeed the reason to use Air India. Raj, who works in corporate communications, had been a loyal IndiGo customer but switched to the competitor in the wake of the disruption.

“I knew about the Air India crash but I think the Indigo strike probably turned me off more,” she says.

“I had friends who were gonna come in for a music festival and there were so many people who were stranded during that time. It was very difficult and there was a lot of uncertainty,” she continues.

“There was a lot of money lost. So after that I remember when I was travelling, I actively chose not to take Indigo.”

Why is she still choosing Air India? “One of the main reasons I do Air India is because of their pricing,” Raj says. “Even during the Indigo crisis, they kept it on time and didn’t really inflate the costs.”

In spite of a competitor’s troubles, Air India maintained a year-on-year passenger deficit in November and December. Fellow international carriers on the India-UK route, on the other hand, saw substantial growth. Their passenger numbers rose by 11.9 per cent year-on-year for both months, while capacity increased by 10.3 per cent and 10.99 per cent respectively.

The data for 2026 suggests Air India is yet to return to the pre-crash rapid growth. Passenger numbers were lower year-on-year in each of the first five months for which figures were made available.

The decline was relatively modest in January, February and March before widening sharply in April and May.

In April, Air India carried 77,822 passengers on the India-UK route, about 27 per cent fewer than in April 2025, despite reducing the number of seats by less than 10 per cent.

The pattern continued in May, when the number of passengers fell almost 25 per cent year-on-year, to 74,499, while capacity only dropped about 11 per cent.

Mehra argues that the recent decline cannot be attributed to the crash alone, pointing to geopolitical tensions and restrictions on Indian carriers using Pakistani airspace. “Clearly the Iran-US war and the continued closure of Pakistani airspace to Indian carriers have contributed to this situation. Foreign airlines are not constrained by restrictions on use of Pakistani airspace, so they have been impacted much less.”

According to data released this month by India’s aviation regulator, DGCA, Air India’s global passenger carriage plunged 36 per cent in the April-June quarter.

The Air India Group, comprising Air India and the low-cost carrier Air India Express, carried about 2.76 million international passengers to and from the country during the quarter, down from 4.33 million in the same period last year. In contrast, foreign airlines saw their passenger carriage to and from India rise by 7 per cent. Emirates carried 1.48 million passengers during the quarter as against 1.28 million the year before, while Lufthansa carried 370,000, up from 350,000. Etihad’s traffic remained broadly stable at about 850,000 passengers.

“I know Air India will save me about six hours because my layover in Dubai is six hours, but I still choose Emirates because I am a very nervous flier and on top of that, sitting in an Air India plane does not help,” says Sharma.

Air India, unlike many of its more popular foreign rivals, offers direct flights between Delhi and London.

Namit Kabra, a consultant at Ernst and Young, preferred Air India for flights from India to London, or Birmingham before the crash because of its “price compatibility”. But, he says, he no longer trusts the airline since the crash.

“I don’t think they have made anything significantly better so that their passengers can ease out on the anxiety. Apart from reducing prices after the crash, I do not feel there is any difference in how the staff treated you before and now,” he complains. “Other airlines are far better.”

Falling passenger traffic only increases the financial pressure as Air India attempts a sweeping overhaul of its operations.

The airline is reportedly seeking about $1.5bn in fresh equity from its owners, Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, months after posting a record annual loss.

Air India and Air India Express posted combined losses of $2.33bn in the financial year ended March, more than double the losses recorded the year before.

The Independent has contacted Air India for comment.

N Chandrasekaran, the outgoing chair of Tata Sons, previously said that Air India’s turnaround could take up to a decade, citing persistent supply-chain disruptions and the need to overhaul the carrier’s legacy systems, culture and fleet.

The airline nevertheless continues to invest heavily in expansion and fleet modernisation. It plans to add about 100 aircraft across the group in 2027 and 2028 and is retrofitting 16 Boeing Dreamliners.

“See, Indian aviation is growing and booming,” Mehra explains the expansion plans. “Yes, there are temporary blips, but long-term growth remains intact. That explains the order for the new aircraft.”