A teenage girl has revealed how she felt ‘hurt’ and ‘excluded’ when her dad secretly took his new family to Paris without her – sparking an online debate about who was in the wrong in the situation. 

The 16-year-old discovered she had been left out of the holiday when her stepbrother shared a TikTok video from the trip to the French capital with her dad, stepmum and two stepbrothers. 

Taking to Reddit, she wrote: ‘I would have loved to be there but they didn’t even tell me they were going.’

The girl, who was staying with her mother at the time, said she texted her dad ‘immediately’ asking if they were enjoying the trip. In his response, she claimed he ‘tried to play dumb’ by saying that he wished she could be there. 

When the daughter pointed out that he could have taken her too, he explained that ‘it wasn’t possible’ and promised they’d talk about it later, she claimed. 

After their return, she opened up to her father and revealed that she was ‘hurt’ he hadn’t taken her along on the holiday. 

But his response, she claimed, was that ‘their finances are very tight’ and the holiday ‘was a gift from the stepmum’s parents’. She remarked: ‘He reminded me that I shouldn’t act in an entitled way.’ 

The daughter told fellow Redditors that she ‘wasn’t convinced’. She explained that her step-family was ‘very rich’ and thus, she argued, she was being taken for a ‘fool’. 

She said: ‘They could have refused to go without me, paid for me themselves, gone somewhere cheaper, stayed a little less longer, or asked my mum to pitch in – and she would have.

‘Me not being there was exclusionary… I told my dad that I was disappointed in him.’

Later, the step-grandmother came to her bedroom to explain that they had gifted the trip to their grandchildren and ‘couldn’t afford’ to include her.

In her response, the daughter said she told the grandmother: ‘I’m a stranger to you and you don’t care about me.’ Using coarse language, she then ordered her to leave her room.

The daughter remarked: ‘She left and I heard her telling my dad that I was very rude to her, so I’m grounded until further notice.’ 

Writing in July last year, she asked Redditors whether she was acting ‘like an entitled brat’ and was in the wrong. 

Her question sparked a flurry of responses which have since resurfaced in recent reports of the debate.

Many people empathised with the girl and supported her reaction to the trip.

‘DarKMuraudeR’ said: ‘They could have gifted something for the whole family but they didn’t. Your dad didn’t decline and say if his daughter can’t go, he won’t be going.’

‘OddAsk9838’ said she was ‘right to be mad’, saying: ‘The fact your dad did not tell you and did not even bother to try and find a way to make it work shows you what kind of man he is.

‘Please ask to move to your mum’s 100 per cent. He has made his choice, and his family is very comfortable treating you like garbage. Don’t take it.’

‘Reditor’ also encouraged the girl to move in with her mum, commenting: ‘Dad has shown her that he has a new family now. The cold hard truth is that he simply doesn’t care about her.

‘Move to your mother’s permanently. Your father has shown you where his priorities lie, and they are not with you.’

Meanwhile, user ‘These-Coat-3164′ said the worst part was that the daughter found out on social media when the family were already in Paris.

‘Her dad didn’t even have the nerve to tell her about the trip in advance,’ they wrote.

Not all users echoed these sentiments – some were quick to defend the dad.

In a comment that earned more than 900 upvotes, ‘Its_Like_Whatever_OK’ said that the step-grandparents ‘don’t owe her a vacation’ because ‘she isn’t their grandchild’. But the user also quipped that her dad ‘should’ve been upfront’ about the trip.

In a similar vein, ‘SwiftAlliegator’ said the step-grandparents are ‘not really obligated’ to treat the girl as their granddaughter.

They remarked it was the stepmum who ‘made a choice to marry a man with a daughter, but her parents didn’t’.

Focusing more on the teenager’s exchange with her step-grandmother, ‘Quix66′ said: ‘Cursing an adult – the grandmother – is bratty and deserving of punishment.’

Echoing their sentiments, ‘TheLyz’ commented: ‘She could have been a little nicer to the step-grandma, but yeah, I’d be pretty upset too.’

When Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone, he described it as ‘literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone’ – and the device’s slick touchscreen was a big part of that.

But if you’ve got your hands full or you’re in a hurry, there are now a lot of functions you can unlock on the iPhone without touching the screen.

You can do everything from turning on the torch to opening your favorite apps by clicking buttons, tapping on the device, or using pre-made voice commands.

Within certain apps, you can also use the buttons instead of the screen, for a better experience when shooting pictures or videos, for example.

Below, we’ve run through some of the best iPhone functions you can unlock using taps, buttons and even shaking your device.

Turn on your torch and open your camera with a tap

Apple’s ‘Back Tap’ function lets you activate functions on your phone by tapping, double-tapping and triple-tapping on the back.

One way people tend to use this is to turn on the torch, but you can configure Back Tap to do everything from triggering the camera app to turning the volume down.

You can even use it to trigger Shortcuts – automations which you can use to do everything from triggering a music app when you put on Bluetooth headphones to automatically sending text messages.

To set up Back Tap, go to Settings > Accessibility > Back Tap, then assign an action to double and triple taps (it helps to tap very rapidly to activate it).

Snooze your alarm clock

Rather than fiddling with the screen, you can use either volume button to instantly silence your alarm.

Just make sure you have the Snooze option enabled to enjoy an extra five minutes.

Delete text by shaking your phone

Typed something wrong? You can automatically delete what you’ve just done by shaking your phone.

When you shake the handset, a menu comes up saying ‘Undo Typing’: select Undo, and the text will vanish.

Call emergency services

You don’t need to unlock your phone or deal with your PIN code to call emergency services.

If you need to call 911, hold down the lock button and either volume button.

After a few seconds Emergency Call slider will pop up on screen.

Voice control apps and set your own command words

Using iPhone’s ‘Voice Control’ settings, you can create your own command words (ideally something you don’t say very often) to open apps and more.

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control and enable it. This allows you to use commands such as Open Siri, Open Spotlight, or Open any app.

If you are feeling adventurous, you can create your own custom commands – select the Customise Commands button and then Create New Command.

Type in a trigger phrase, then select actions to take within any app (it will mimic your finger gestures and repeat them when you say the word).

You can use this to trigger a favourite playlist (for example) although it takes practice to get it right.

You can even use this to enter your PIN code to unlock your phone, although we wouldn’t recommend this for security reasons.

A blue microphone in the top right corner of the screen tells you that the iPhone has heard your command.

Call people on speakerphone

You can call people using Siri (as long as you have your phone set up to listen for Hey Siri), and for a fully hands-free experience, you can even route the call through your phone’s speaker.

To activate this, simply say, ‘Hey Siri, call [Contact] on speaker’.

Take photo bursts

If you’re shooting something fast-moving like a sporting event (or children who won’t sit still), burst photo mode lets you take multiple shots using your volume up button.

You’ll obviously have to have the camera app open (you can do this using a voice command if you want to, see below).

To enable this, go to Settings > Camera and select Use Volume Up For Burst.

Force restart

This one is very useful to know if your phone freezes and won’t restart: it’s a hard reset, which means it forces all apps to shut down.

You might lose data, but unlike a factory reset, it won’t wipe your phone.

Press and quickly release the volume up button. Press and quickly release the volume down button.

Press and hold the side button. When the Apple logo appears, release the side button.

Get your card ready in Apple Pay

You can get cards ready to pay in stores, or if you’re about to go into the subway, by simply double-tapping the device’s side button.

To do this, enable ‘Double-Click Side Button’ in Settings > Wallet and Apple Pay.

Five-year-old boy drowned in Cornwall holiday park pool when his parents ‘didn’t see him struggling because of low lighting and barriers’ – moments after family took pictures of them putting up tent together at the start of their summer trip

• Robin Caliskan, five, drowned at the Atlantic Reach holiday park in Newquay

By Katherine Lawton

Published: 09:30 EDT, 1 August 2023 | Updated: 13:56 EDT, 1 August 2023

Me and my dog had the SAME rare bone cancer… but he didn’t make it

• Phoebe Daniels was just 13-years-old when she was diagnosed with cancer  

By Eirian Jane Prosser

Updated: 21:12 EDT, 30 July 2023

SOCIETY

RENTAL PERSON WHO DOES NOTHING 

by Shoji Morimoto (Picador £14.99, 160pp)

‘I’m an amateur writer and at the moment I’m writing a novel. When I’m writing on my own, I often get a bit lazy, so I’d like someone to watch me. I wonder if you would sit in front of me while I work. I may say something to you occasionally, but basically I’d just like you to sit there and pass the time.’

This simple and somewhat odd request is commonplace for Shoji Morimoto, a 39-year-old freelance writer from Japan.

Many people dream of a life where they get paid to do nothing at all, or at least very little. This is a reality for Morimoto, aka Rental Person Who Does Nothing.

Dispirited by the monotony and repetition of his freelance writing work, and having quit every job he’s ever had and always been told he was a ‘do-nothing’ by former bosses and co-workers, Morimoto decided that, since he was so good at doing nothing, he may as well do it full-time.

He tweeted his idea, offering himself up as a service to be rented out, as long as it essentially involved doing… well, nothing. 

‘Maybe there’s a restaurant you want to go to, but you feel awkward going on your own. Maybe a game you want to play, but you’re one person short… I can’t do anything except give very simple responses.’ 

Within ten months, his 3,000 followers had jumped to 100,000 (he currently has more than 400,000) and he has since been hired by more than 4,000 people.

He initially charged just expenses for travel and food, but now, to avoid time wasters and to reduce the volume of requests, the price of Rental Person’s company is 10,000 yen — roughly £60.

Jobs can be straightforward, such as joining a client for an ice-cream soda — ‘I know how awkward it can be for a Japanese man to go into a cafe on his own and order an ice-cream soda, so I said “Yes” straight away’ — or accompanying someone when they go to file their divorce papers (‘It was an interesting day for me. I felt I’d accompanied her from one stage of life to the next’).

Others are less so, from being asked to visit someone in a suicide unit of a hospital after a drug overdose, to the man who hired him so he could share something he felt he couldn’t tell anyone else: that he’d killed someone.

‘Since then, I think I’ve looked at people in a different way, realising that even the most ordinary, upright-looking people are not what they seem.’

Some people find it easier to work or study if another person is there.

Others use Rental Person’s impending visit as an excuse to finally clean their homes after months of avoiding it.

And some are simply bored, lonely or want to be listened to.

Although Rental Person has undeniably helped many people, acting as a sort of companion, therapist and lunch date all rolled into one, he denies he is altruistic — and says this was the case even when he didn’t charge for his services.

‘I really want to avoid being thought of as a good person,’ Morimoto writes. ‘I’m absolutely not a good person and I don’t want people to expect me to be. Rental Person has been described as “a new-age gigolo” and “a new-age beggar”. I think being a gigolo or beggar are potential ways of relating to people, and the word “new” sounds good, so I feel quite positive about these comments.’

Although he didn’t actually write the book, as this would be ‘doing something’ — he was interviewed by a writer and editor and gave very simple responses — Morimoto has a detached charm and honest self-deprecation that means you can’t help but like him. ‘I have, as usual, done nothing. I have simply watched, with interest and surprise, as this book has developed.’

There’s a lovely irony that the man who was made to feel like a waste of space has ended up with such a fulfilling and unique job, and earned some £215,000, all from ‘doing nothing’.

Reports suggest the World Health Organization could declare aspartame as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ meaning it increases the risk of developing cancer.

What is aspartame?

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that was first developed in the 60s and is approximately 200 times sweeter than sugar.

This means less is needed gram per gram than sugar to achieve the same sweet result, making products that contain it have fewer overall calories.

Unlike sugar it also does not raise blood-sugar levels and thus can be used as alternative source of sweetness for diabetics.

Chemically it is made up of three substances aspartic acid (40 per cent), phenylalanine (50 per cent) and methanol (10 per cent).

What is it found in?

In a wide variety of products that market themselves as being ‘diet’ or ‘sugar-free’.

The most famous examples are soft drink giant Coca-Cola’s diet sodas, Diet Coke and Coke Zero as well as sugar-free gums like Extra’s.

Other examples include low fat yogurts. 

Is there aspartame in Coke Zero and Pepsi Max too?

Yes. Both products list aspartame in their ingredients list.

Other soft drink brands like some Fanta flavours, Lucozade and Dr Pepper also contain the artificial sweetener.

What are its dangers?

Aspartame has been linked to a host of general medical issues including headaches, dizziness and stomach upsets.

However blind trials, where participants don’t know if the product they consume has the sweetener, have failed to replicate this.

But there have been broader health concerns for years, including that they cause cancer, alter the gut biome, cause depression, and paradoxically even contribute to obesity by increasing people’s appetites.

However, health and food regulators have repeatedly declared them safe to use following ‘a rigorous safety assessment’.

There is one exception, which is for people with phenylketonuria, a rare inherited condition. 

People with phenylketonuria cannot process phenylalanine, an amino acid that is one of the building blocks of aspartame.

If people with phenylketonuria consume phenylalanine it can build up in their blood eventually damaging their vital organs. 

It’s for this reason that aspartame must be listed as an ingredient on products that contain it.  

Only about one in 10,000 people have the condition.  

What does the potential ruling mean?

If confirmed it would see the WHO body, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), link aspartame consumption to cancer.

However, there are several degrees of the strength of the cancer risk it could be given.

According to reports it could be listed as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ a status shard by substances like Aloe vera extract, the metal lead, and several colouring agents. 

For comparison the IARC has declared red meat as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’, one stage above the status aspartame could be given.

However, even if found to be ‘possibly carcinogenic’ to humans an individual’s risk could vary immensely.

The IARC establishes its rating based on evidence linking a substance to cancer, not the actual risk itself. 

This would be determined by a separate body, the Joint WHO and Food and Agriculture Organization’s Expert Committee on Food Additives, who would provide advice on individual consumption levels alongside national health bodies.

In theory, this could see the NHS, for example, advise a healthy limit of consumption of products containing aspartame, similar to those it does for red and processed meat.

More broadly an IARC ruling on aspartame’s cancer risk could see consumer backlash, with customers shunning products containing them over cancer fears.

Similar boycotts have occurred from other IARC rulings.

This could lead to companies changing the formulation of their products.

Could this see products like Diet Coke be given a cancer warning?

Unlikely. Such rules are left up to individual countries.

But no similar warnings have been placed on red or processed meats in the UK despite stronger links to cancer being found according to past IARC rulings.

Phillip Schofield has revealed Holly Willoughby did not reply to his text which said he was ‘so, so sorry’ for lying to her about his ‘unwise, but not illegal’ relationship with a much younger colleague.

The fallen This Morning star also claimed that his co-presenter of 14 years had distanced herself from him after his pedophile brother was jailed.

Breaking his silence for the first time since his sudden departure from ITV Schofield told The Sun: ‘I’ve lost my best friend. I let her down (Holly). I let that entire show down. I let the viewers down.

‘Holly did not know (about the romance). And she was one of the first texts that I sent, to say, ‘I am so, so sorry that I lied to you’.

‘She didn’t reply, and I understand why she didn’t reply, as well. So yeah. If anyone is in any way linking Holly to this; that is ­absolutely, wholly untrue.’

Schofield claimed his relationship with his former best friend broke down after his brother was jailed, which made her distance herself from the friendship. 

The veteran ITV presenter had stepped down from his role on This Morning just days after his pedophile brother Timothy Schofield was jailed for 12 years for a slew of child sex offences including abusing a teenage boy he groomed.

The star’s 54-year-old brother was convicted of 11 sexual offences involving a child between October 2016 and October 2019, including two of sexual activity with a child, after a trial at Exeter Crown Court in April.

During the bombshell interview, Schofield said that Willoughby had been one of the first people he confided in after his brother confessed to the horrendous behaviour.

He said that his co-host had been incredibly supportive throughout the trial, ‘holding [his] hand every step of the way’. 

Last Friday, Schofield admitted that he had lied to ITV, his co-host, his agency YMU and lawyers about his relationship with a much younger colleague.

The revelation sent ITV into meltdown, being forced to launch an external investigation into the affair, after a number of former workers claimed the station’s bosses must have known about their romance.

Last night, Schofield insisted he ‘did not’ groom the young boy, who he had met when he was just 15 years old.

The young man then asked the former host for a job, landing a role in ITV production when he turned 18. The affair began sometime after that.

Schofield has now insisted his interactions with the younger male before he joined This Morning were ‘completely innocent.’

He told The Sun: ‘I did not, I did not (groom him).

‘There are accusations of all sorts of things. It never came across that way because we’d become mates. I don’t know about that.

‘But of course I understand that there will be a massive judgment, but bearing in mind, I have never exercised that anywhere else.’

He also told the newspaper that he did not ‘lie to protect’ his career, but the colleague who ‘did not want his name in public.

Schofield said the romance began after a ‘consensual moment’ in his dressing room in 2017 but insisted ‘it was not a love affair’.

‘It was not a relationship, we were not boyfriends; we were mates.’   

The fling took place while the TV star was still married to his wife of 30 years Stephanie Lowe, whom he has two daughters with.

Recalling the moment he confessed to the affair, having previously denied it when she had asked him, the former host said: ‘She got off a plane and I phoned her up and texted saying, ‘I need to talk to you’. She called back and I told her.’

Today’s interview is the first of two, with a sit down interview between Schofield and the BBC’s Amol Rajan to be released soon.

In a trailer released by the broadcaster, Schofield said: ‘It was a totally innocent picture, a totally innocent Twitter follow, of which I follow 11,400 people, and then it was a completely innocent backwards and forwards over a period of time about a job, about careers.

‘What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with talking to someone no matter what age they are?

‘Does that mean that if you’re following anyone on Twitter that you absolutely don’t talk to anybody else or you don’t give advice?’

He added: ‘The brief communications backwards and forwards up to the point that he came to work on This Morning I think was just chat.’

It follows the revelation that under-fire ITV boss Carolyn McCall has been called to appear before MPs to face questions over how the broadcaster approaches safeguarding and complaint handling.

Schofield’s admission to the affair with his junior colleague plunged the station into a crisis, seeing sponsors back out of multi-million-pound deals.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has today written to Dame Carolyn asking her to attend Parliament at 10am on Wednesday, June 14.

It comes after she was forced into a humiliating climbdown yesterday by announcing the broadcaster was bringing in a barrister to ‘carry out an external review to establish the facts’ around the chaos that has engulfed ITV since Schofield made his statement last week.

Does the prospect of living in a floating village float your boat? Then you’ll be inspired by the life led by this TikToker.

Jessie Hutch captures eye-opening videos of her life in an ultra-remote floating village in British Columbia, on the west coast of Canada, where houses are towed from bay to bay throughout the year, visitors arrive via seaplane and the local shop – another floating building – is a 25-minute boat ride away.

One fascinating video shows a little tugboat ferrying the floating wooden houses across a bay, while another demonstrates how the cabins are all tied together by rope – they’re bound to the same wooden raft, mooring them in the same place.

A third clip shows a barge operated by the Central Coast Marine Services delivering supplies – ice cream and fuel – to the residents.

People have been amazed by the sight of these floating houses. One TikTok clip has amassed 7.9million views to date. TikToker ‘sb1289’ said: ‘I did a double-take – that’s a house?’ Another TikToker, ‘Danielle’ remarked: ‘This gives whole new meaning to the term “houseboat”.’ Meanwhile, user Brooke joked that if a resident didn’t like their neighbour, they could ’just move spots’.

Jessie, 34, works as a caretaker for Finn Bay Lodge, a series of guest cabins, staff accommodation and a restaurant moored in Finn Bay, which lies in a 45km- (28-mile) long inlet known as Rivers Inlet. She describes the settlement as a world that people don’t know exists. 

The fishing lodge has room for 16 guests and 10 crew during the summer, but it will be overseen by just one caretaker in the winter. 

Jessie, who is originally from Toronto, spends her winters in Panama. 

Four people live permanently in floating homes within the inlet, with two of them – Sarah and Robin Cooper, a 20-minute boat ride away in Sunshine Bay – being Jessie’s closest neighbours.

‘Robin has grown up here his whole life living on water,’ says Jessie. 

A small indigenous nation known as the Oweekeno people, meanwhile, lives on land at the head of the inlet.

How do the homes stay afloat? Jessie tells MailOnline Travel that these floating homes ‘float on logs that are lined up and bound together’.

Why are they towed around? Jessie explains: ‘In the winter on the central coast of the Pacific Ocean, the weather can get pretty gnarly. Floats will be towed to different bays that are more protected from harsh winds and swells and tides.’

When it comes to towing the ‘float homes’, preparation is essential – along with good weather conditions. Jessie explains: ‘Realistically, you could tow these houses in good weather as far as you need. All you need is a great tug boat and as much money and gas to take it where it needs to get to.’

She continues: ‘This mostly takes some muscle and planning. The muscle work is tying the floats up in a row… the planning is waiting for calm weather. When towing a lot of weight, you don’t want to be fighting current or wind.’

While one person alone can tow a house, Jessie notes that it’s ‘always nice to have someone there to help you tie [the float homes] into place’.

These homes – which are located within Wuikinuxv Nation territory – are constructed on dry land and are designed so that they’re ready to float once they hit the water. Floating walkways are also built to help moor the floating houses and to allow residents to dock their boats.

Over time, the float homes can sink, but Jessie notes that there are several ‘solutions’ to keeping them afloat for longer, such as adding more logs to the underside of the houses.

How much do they cost? Jessie reveals: ‘It really depends on what you’re looking for. You could get an old float for little money at all or build a new one for a pretty penny with [the] cost of lumber.’

Most of the cabins that make up Finn Bay Lodge – which opened for the first time this spring – were repurposed from a recently closed floating lodge, the Hakai Lodge, that operated nearby.

The inlet is typically quite busy with tourists in the summer months, Jessie, who has spent the past few years working in different lodges in the area, reveals. 

Most travellers go fishing, kayaking or boating. During their stay, they can spot an array of wildlife, from grizzly bears and humpback whales to orcas, eagles and black bears.

Jessie, who lives at Finn Bay Lodge with her partner Jo and their dog Canuto, notes that there’s no road access to the lodge, and while there is Wi-Fi, it’s so remote that even Amazon can’t deliver. 

Jessie says that every time she has tried to order a package to be delivered via the Central Coast Marine Services barge, the ‘order has been cancelled due to the location’.

The same goes for takeaways, though Jessie notes that ‘sometimes the guests will bring in some pizza for us when they fly directly from Vancouver’. She adds: ‘This is such a treat.’

The majority of the time, Jessie lives off the freshly caught fish. She says: ‘In the ocean, there is an abundance of food. Salmon, halibut, lingcod, prawns and crab just to name a few. We live off of these things when you are able to fish for them. It is important to never take more than you need from the ocean.’

Some locals have also managed to grow produce on their floats. Jessie explains: ‘There isn’t much for soil here so we haven’t planted many things. Our neighbour, Amber, [has] been successful with kale, onions, broccoli, herbs and more. She even has her own float with a garden on it. The garden beds are made with old recycled bathtubs.’

The groceries that arrive via the Central Coast Marine Services barge – which arrives every two weeks – are sourced from a shop in Port Hardy, further south along the coast. Jessie reveals: ‘Planning in ordering is key with this system.’

She can also take a trip to Dawsons Landing General Store, her nearest shop. Jessie says: ‘This store has the post office, liquor, gas and small shop items that are very expensive due to the transport of getting them there.’

All waste is treated in a filter system located on one of the village’s floating decks, and a generator is used for electricity. Jessie says: ‘The heating is a mix between a diesel heater and a fireplace.’

Reflecting on the highlights of living in the floating settlement, Jessie says: ‘The beauty of the nature is unlike anything else. With no people or civilisation, you are really able to see the small things in nature. Watching the spring arrive is our favourite time here.’

And the downsides? Jessie says: ‘It’s isolated… it’s not a place for someone who likes the city lifestyle or social scenes.’

Since she has started sharing clips of Finn Bay Lodge on TikTok, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Jessie reveals: ‘I think people really enjoy seeing different ways of living off the grid. Most people think it’s amazing and would love to get away from the city to see something like this!’

The culture of float homes in British Columbia is examined in the 1963 documentary The Water Dwellers, which focuses on a community of loggers living in floating homes in the region’s Simoom Sound. In more recent years, Canadian couple Wayne Adams and Catherine King made headlines when pictures of their 12-platformed float home in British Columbia circulated online.   

Floating villages exist in other parts of the world too – similar communities can be found on lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia, on Peru’s Lake Titicaca and in Vietnam’s Halong Bay. 

To see more videos from Jessie, follow her on tiktok.com/@jessiehutch12. To rent a cabin at Finn Bay Lodge, visit finnbaylodge.com. 

The British pensioner accused of murdering his terminally ill wife in Cyprus has told how she ‘cried and begged’ him to kill her for weeks.

David Hunter, 75, was overcome with emotion as he described his agonising final months with Janice, 74, before he took the heartbreaking decision to end her suffering.

He told how his teenage sweetheart was reduced to wearing nappies, was covered in skin lesions and could no longer stand from her devastating blood cancer.

The retired miner was forced to treat her himself at home due to Covid restrictions as she deteriorated in front of his eyes.

He told the court his wife was left crying out in agony 24 hours a day.

He broke down in tears as he told the court how he killed his wife after she ‘begged’ him for six weeks.

He said: ‘I don’t remember a lot of the last day. I went to make a cup of coffee and she started crying.’

He described how he went to the kettle and gripped the bench for support as his wife sat sobbing next door.

‘The next thing I knew I put my hands on her,’ he said, wiping tears from his eyes. ‘When it was finished, she was a grey colour. She didn’t look like my wife, and it was the first time I cried in many years.’

He described how he stood by her side and put his left hand on her nose and right hand over her mouth to smother her.

When prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou suggested that Mrs Hunter struggled and scratched him as he smothered her, Mr Hunter told him: ‘She never struggled, she never moved. You are talking nonsense.’

Mr Hadjikyrou then suggested Mr Hunter had planned to kill his wife and did not tell her, to which he replied: ‘I would never in a million years take my wife’s life if she had not asked me.

‘She wasn’t just my wife, she was my best friend.’ He added: ‘She wasn’t crazy, you haven’t seen the strain of the last six years, what she’s gone through.

‘The situation, the pressure. I wouldn’t like anyone to go through the last six months we both went through.’

The prosecutor responded: ‘Mr Hunter, there are people that go through much worse pain.’

Mr Hunter said he didn’t tell the doctors of his wife’s suicidal wishes because she asked him not to, fearing they would take her into hospital. He didn’t tell their daughter because he didn’t want to ‘worry’ her.

After the cross examination finished, Mr Hunter asked to address the judge. He told him: ‘My wife was suffering and she actually said, ‘I don’t want to live anymore,’ and I still said no.

‘Then she started to become hysterical. I was hoping she would change her mind. I loved her so much. I did not plan it, I swear to God.’

On Monday morning he told the court of the events leading up to the day he smothered his wife.  ‘I would never have helped her end her life if she had not begged me,’ he said, giving evidence for the first time after over 20 appearances in 18 months. ‘For six weeks she asked if I could help her. For six weeks I refused.’

Describing her agony, he told Paphos District Court: ‘She was lying down, she was in pain, suffering. I would do anything to help her. The last thing on my mind was to take her life. The last thing.’

He said she was ‘stuck in the house’ and couldn’t move because of her diarrhoea – a side effect of her medication that saw her wear nappies for her last three years.

‘She cried, she couldn’t do nothing, she couldn’t move,’ he said. ‘She was sleeping in the leather chair downstairs and for the last week we slept down on those chairs together.

‘I felt so helpless and hopeless that I couldn’t do anything for her. For five or six weeks before she died she was asking me to help her, she was asking me more every day.

‘In the last week she was crying and begging me. Every day she asked me a bit more intensely to do it. I didn’t want to do it after 57 years together. I really didn’t want to do it.’

Mr Hunter said he repeatedly told her he couldn’t bring himself to kill her, but she implored him, telling him: ‘I can’t go on, this isn’t life for me.’

In the last few days she went from just crying to being more emotional. He said: ‘She started becoming hysterical, so I told her, ‘Yes, I’m going to help you’. I just told her that to calm her down.’

Asked how the last few days were, Mr Hunter said: ‘She was crying, crying, crying, begging, begging, begging.

‘She wasn’t taking any care of herself. The last two or three weeks she could not move her arms and had trouble with her legs, she couldn’t balance.

‘She was only eating soup, she couldn’t hold anything down. She lost a lot of weight. She lost so much weight that there was no flesh to put her injections in.’

He said in those final days he was ‘thinking about what to do 24/7’ before finally taking the decision to go through with it when she once more started crying out in pain.

Mr Hunter said: ‘I remember that I had my hand on her mouth and nose. I don’t even know how I thought about it. I don’t know how long I kept my hands there for.

‘She did not attempt to stop me… I don’t even think she opened her eyes.’

After she died, he kissed her forehead and told her he loved her, before confessing to his brother who alerted the police. He said he cannot remember being arrested or giving interviews to police.

In cross examination, prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou said: ‘I put it to you that you had decided to kill her and there was no common consent, and that you just had to decide what day to kill her on.’

Mr Hunter replied: ‘No, I never intended to kill her. I had hoped for eight or nine days that she would get better, that she would change her mind.’

He added: ‘The last thing on my mind was to take her life – the last thing,’ before pointing to the prosecutor and saying: ‘That’s his idea, that’s not my idea.’

Earlier he told how he met his wife when she asked him for a dance at a miners’ hall party in Northumberland.

‘She came up to me and said, ‘You’re sitting in my seat.’ I hadn’t ever seen such a beautiful woman,’ he said.

From there, they were always together, he said, and they married in St John’s Church in Ashington in 1969.

Asked how their marriage was, he said: ‘Perfect.’ He told how he worked seven days a week in the mine to pay for their only child, Leslie, to become the first member of the family to go to university.

He and his wife would visit Cyprus on holidays and bought a property there in 1999 before moving across two years later to retire there.

Mr Hunter said: ‘The first 16 years before she got sick, apart from a few operations, it was absolutely fantastic.’

But Mr Hunter suffered a stroke in 2015 and it was on regular trips to the hospital for his treatment that a doctor noticed his wife was looking very pale.

She was diagnosed with blood cancer and had to go to the capital Nicosia every week for procedures and injections.

As her condition deteriorated she asked to go to Paphos General Hospital because she couldn’t face the journeys, but when Covid hit it was closed and so they kept her injections in their fridge and self-medicated.

Mr Hunter told how he called the hospital five times a day but there was no answer, and he was forced to travel to centres further away for help and supplies.

She had two 125 euro injections per week but started suffering side effects including diarrhoea, headaches, dizziness and nose bleeds.

Mrs Hunter’s haemoglobin levels were such that she was unable to take painkillers and was left in agony at home, unable to move.

In her last months she underwent a series of operations for skin lesions on her face and hands, as well as a knee operation and another for her collarbone.

Speaking after his hearing, Mr Hunter told the press he was happy to finally give his account after waiting for 18 months.

‘I got my say, this is what I wanted,’ he said. ‘To tell them things that they never even thought about.

‘For six weeks when she was asking me, it was 24 hours. She was my wife, my best friend.

‘The last six months, I wouldn’t like anyone to go through that. Prison is nothing compared to what we went though.’

Sen. Ron Johnson accused Antony Blinken of telling a ‘boldface lie’ to Congress about his communications with Hunter Biden after it his emails with the first son were revealed. 

The Wisconsin Republican revealed that Blinken, when he was still working for the Biden campaign in December 2020, had come in to sit for a transcribed interview with his team. He was then aiming for the secretary of State job, a Senate-confirmed position.  

‘Now, because of more information that’s come out, we know that he lied boldface to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden,’ Johnson told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. 

‘My guess is he told a bunch of other lies that hopefully we’ll be able to bring him and his wife back in, tell them to preserve their records. You cannot trust Joe Biden. You cannot trust Hunter Biden.’ 

Asked if he believed Blinken lied under oath, Johnson said: ‘Yes, he did.’ 

‘He said he did not email Hunter Biden, and now we have those emails. We also know that his wife, using her private email address when she was a[n] employee of the State Department, was basically a conduit between her husband and Hunter Biden as well,’ Johnson continued. 

The Wisconsin Republican said Blinken needs to be subpoenaed, but without Democrat support he would not have the authority to do so. 

‘If he wants to proclaim his innocence, I doubt he’ll do that, but he must and she must preserve their records, their personal emails. When you get to the bottom of this, we need to show how corrupt these individuals are.’ 

The Functional Government Initiative, a government watchdog group, obtained a trove of emails from Blinken during his time in the Obama administration showing Blinken and Hunter Biden writing to each other and setting up personal meetings through his private AOL account during his time as deputy secretary of state. 

Emails obtained by Fox News showed that Blinken met with Hunter Biden at the State Department in 2015 while Hunter was on the board of Burisma. 

Emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show Blinken and his wife Evan Ryan have long had contact with the first son. On multiple occasions, Hunter forwarded communications about setting up meetings with Blinken to fellow board members of Burisma.  

Meanwhile, Mike Morell last week told the House Judiciary Committee that he was asked by Blinken – who at the time was a senior member of the Biden campaign – to help discredit the laptop reporting.

Morell was a former acting CIA director, serving for two months in 2011 and four months from 2012 to 2013. He retired from the CIA in September 2013. 

He coordinated a letter from former intelligence chiefs claiming that Hunter Biden‘s laptop was Russian disinformation because he wanted to help Joe Biden‘s presidential campaign.

The Judiciary Committee, led by Jim Jordan, is currently investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop, as well as the Biden family businesses.

Morell ‘recently’ conducted a transcribed interview with Jordan’s team and was asked about the Biden campaign’s response to the laptop.

The laptop, which had been left in a Delaware repair store, was touted by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer, as providing evidence of supposed corruption among the Biden family.

The Biden campaign said the efforts to publicize the contents of the laptop bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

The laptop included explicit photos of the troubled Hunter Biden naked, with prostitutes, and taking drugs, as well as multiple emails and texts between the 53-year-old and his father.

Morell said that he was asked by Blinken to rally former intelligence chiefs to agree that the laptop looked like a smear campaign.

He carried out ‘a little bit of my own research,’ and then reached out to retired CIA senior operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos for assistance in compiling the letter.

The letter was ultimately signed by 51 former intelligence officials, including himself and four other former CIA directors, including John Brennan and Leon Panetta.

The letter was published by Politico five days after The New York Post first reported on the contents of the laptop.

The headline for Politico’s story, on October 19, 2020, was: ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former officials say.’

The letter alleged that The New York Post story ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’ 

Several media outlets, including DailyMail.com, have since confirmed the contents of the laptop and that it belonged to Hunter Biden. 

Joe Biden used the letter during the October 22 debate against Donald Trump, saying he thought the reporting around his son’s abandoned computer was the work of Russia.

Morell was thanked for his work in coordinating the letter, with Steve Ricchetti, chairman of the Biden campaign, telephoning him after the debate to say thank you.

He was then said to be in consideration for the role of CIA director – a job that ultimately went to William Burns.

Morell, who has been a consultant, strategist, lecturer and author since his resignation almost a decade ago, said he was never formally in talks for the role.

On Thursday, Jordan and Michael Turner, the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to Blinken requesting his communications with Morell around the laptop.

They issued a statement accusing Morell and the other intel chiefs of ‘concerted effort to minimize and suppress’ information harmful to the Biden campaign. 

‘Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election,’ they wrote. 

‘Although the statement’s signatories have an unquestioned right to free speech and free association—which we do not dispute—their reference to their national security credentials lent weight to the story and suggested access to specialized information unavailable to other Americans. 

‘This concerted effort to minimize and suppress public dissemination of the serious allegations about the Biden family was a grave disservice to all American citizens’ informed participation in our democracy.’