A British Airways passenger was left feeling ‘completely devastated’ and ‘physically sick’ after she and her family were ‘removed’ from a flight – because her son has a severe nut allergy and there was a meal with nuts on board the plane.

What’s more, the passenger, Alice Smith*, 43, had spent days in conversation with BA arranging for her cabin on the August 24 flight from London Heathrow to Dubai to be nut-free.

Yet when BA staff discovered that a cashew nut meal had been delivered to the galley for the meal service, Smith claims they decided to remove her group from the flight instead of the nut dish. So Smith – who has vowed never to fly with BA again – disembarked, along with her husband, 50, her two elderly parents, aged 73 and 74, and her two children, aged 14 and 18.

They weren’t placed on another flight to Dubai until the following day. On their replacement flight, Smith, her husband and their sons were downgraded to economy seats, despite having paid to sit in premium economy, marketed by BA as World Traveller Plus. Smith’s elderly parents, however, were upgraded from premium economy to business class. 

As a result of the debacle, the family lost a whole day of their 10-day trip in Dubai, which had been booked – along with their flights – through BA Holidays. 

To compensate, an extra day was added on to their trip ‘free of charge’.

The holiday was a special one for the family, as it was Smith’s elderly father’s first trip after undergoing a heart bypass. Smith was recommended BA Holidays by a friend, and spent £15,500 on the package break, splashing out extra on premium economy tickets to ensure her father would be comfortable.

Smith’s 14-year-old son is allergic to all nuts – including tree nuts such as cashews – and must carry an emergency adrenaline pen in case of an allergic reaction.

The mum-of-two, who is self-employed, first contacted BA about her son’s severe allergy on August 12 – nearly two weeks before their flight was due to depart.

Smith is aware that the airline can’t guarantee a completely nut-free environment, as its website states, but she alleges she was told that they wouldn’t have any nut dishes on the menu in her cabin. She says: ‘We [were] assured by BA several times that no nuts would be served in our cabin and several announcements would be made before take-off.’ 

When the family of six arrived at the airport to check in for flight BA107, they were again reassured that no nuts would be served in the cabin, Smith claims.

Later they boarded the A380 early ‘to clean and sanitise the area’ around their seats as they usually do, Smith explains. When she spoke to the crew on board about her son’s allergy, they told her that they ‘knew all about it’ and said that earlier in the day, they’d held a meeting in which they’d discussed the precautions they would take, Smith says.

She continues: ‘[The crew] proceeded to make five separate announcements [to fellow passengers] to “please refrain from eating or opening any nuts or nut products as there is a young person on board who has a severe nut allergy”.’

Smith was impressed by the multiple announcements and says that ‘all seemed well’. She says of her fellow passengers: ‘People were handing in nuts to the crew, saying: “Oh I’ve got some, can you take them away from me.” Passengers were lovely.

‘We were fully assured, fully confident. [We were] literally sitting there, ready for take-off.’ 

However, things took a turn when they were handed their menus, ‘which, to [her] horror included a prawn with cashew nut meal’.

Smith says: ‘What happened over the next hour has traumatised our whole family and won’t leave us.’

Feeling ‘tearful and anxious’, she says she alerted the crew to the nut dish on the menu. 

Smith alleges she was initially told that the cashew nut dish would be replaced. Then, three members of ground staff came on board the flight and Smith was informed that it had been decided it was ‘best’ for her family to disembark the aircraft, she alleges.

She notes that ‘some of [the crew] were so upset and they were lovely… I do not know whose decision this was to remove a family [instead of] a little carton of food’.

Smith claims: ‘By this point, I was shaking and feeling very intimidated and bullied… I explained that I had my elderly parents with us and there were six of us.’ She also pointed out that they had repeatedly received assurance there would be no nuts served in the cabin, but it was to no avail – they were asked to leave the flight, she alleges.

She admits: ‘I can’t tell you the shock and horror of that feeling… I just kept thinking this can’t be happening. We were removed, our bags [were] taken off and my family [was] distraught.

‘I was in floods of tears.’

She alleges that fellow passengers on board were ‘disgusted and said how horrendous it was… no one could believe it’.

Smith and her family spent the rest of the day in arrivals with representatives from British Airways’ customer service team trying to arrange a new flight to Dubai, she says. Eventually, a flight for the following day was arranged. 

The family was offered water, but not food vouchers or a hotel for the night, she alleges – a claim that BA disputes. 

Smith alleges they had no option but to return to their Berkshire home ahead of their replacement flight the following day, paying for taxis both there and back. 

There were no issues with nuts on their subsequent flight to Dubai.

Smith says: ‘Our holiday we had been looking forward to [was] ruined. The treatment we received was horrific. The stress suffered has affected us all.

‘We have not had any explanation for what they did to us and no remorse [has been] shown.’

She plans on seeking compensation from BA eventually but says she is currently ‘too traumatised’ by the experience to navigate making a claim.

Smith says: ‘It was just the most traumatic, awful, horrendous experience. It left me feeling physically sick. I’ll never travel with them again. Never – it was shocking.’

A statement from BA disputes aspects of Smith’s account. It says: ‘The safety and welfare of our customers is always our priority, and that’s why on every flight we operate we follow the recommendations of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for allergen-sensitive passengers. 

‘We clearly state in our published policy, and all correspondence with customers, that we can never guarantee an allergen-free cabin environment. Our crews work hard to limit any risk by allowing customers to board early to carry out additional cleansing, making allergy announcements to all passengers and restricting the serving of peanuts. 

‘In this case, our teams worked hard to find solutions to the issues raised once the customers elected not to travel that day, offering overnight hotel accommodation, the same flight the following day and extending the family’s holiday free of charge.’

The BA website says: ‘We cannot guarantee an allergen-free cabin environment or prevent other passengers from bringing their own food on board. Meals containing tree nuts may continue to be served throughout the aircraft and tree-nut-based snacks may also continue to be served in other cabins of travel depending on the aircraft type.’

The charity Allergy UK says that ‘it is important that airline staff are informed of a food allergy at every opportunity’ though it notes that ‘individual airlines will have their own policy on food allergy management and this will vary depending on the provider’.

It adds: ‘There is no legislation to date that determines best practice for managing the needs of the food allergic traveller.’

*The subject’s name has been changed.  

Sean Strickland is the new UFC middleweight champion after beating Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 293, but he’s a man who carries a lot of baggage.

His victory on Sunday has been branded one of the biggest upsets in UFC history, with all three judges scoring the bout 49-46 for the American to ensure he won by unanimous decision.

After dropping his opponent in the first round, Strickland survived a comeback of sorts from Adesanya in the second, then took the remaining stages of the contest with a brilliant effort that saw him continually pressure his rival and land big shots.

The new world champ was overcome with emotion in the octagon after the decision was announced and told the crowd, ‘Am I f**king dreaming? Am I going to wake up? Someone hit me!’

But he has previously made headlines for all the wrong reasons, from talks of murder to stern sexism.

In June, the 32-year-old made a string of sexist and misogynistic remarks, saying ‘we need to take women out of the workforce’ and ‘put them back in the kitchen.’

‘We let women vote, no offense. Think about America prior to women voting,’ he said.

‘They tried to ban alcohol, I don’t even drink but I’m not trying to ban alcohol. So, what you did, man, you let these women come into the workforce, now we make less money, you got kids raising themselves on TikTok, we need to go back to like 1942, maybe 1958 after we f***** up the Germans.

‘We need to put women back in the kitchen, only one man needs to be working, so as a collective man group we need to elect someone that’s gonna put women back in the kitchen, one man working, raise the wages, and build a f****** wall.’

Though it appears Strickland is well-aware of the backlash of his remarks, he continues to make them and cause offence.

Two years ago, he made headlines for admitted he would like to kill someone in the octagon after his win over Uriah Hall.

‘If you like to f****** hurt people, you’re in the right sport, man,’ he said. ‘Like, I would love nothing more than to kill somebody in the ring.

‘Nothing more. It would make me super happy. I would own that s***, too. I don’t know if that made me liable, I might have to say I’m sorry if the cops came. But I would own that s***.’

He went onto suggest he could have acted on his murderous fantasies if he wasn’t for MMA.

‘I would walk down the street with a knife or like a rock, hoping to kill somebody,’ he told Ariel Helwani. ‘And when I started training, I realised man, you’re just f****** angry.

‘There’s just something in me that I just knew that if I could just kill a human being, it would make me feel good, short time. But it’s one of those things where I think more people think like that, and I’m just the one that says it.

‘I always say that the difference between me and other people. Like, you can watch Dexter, you can watch The Punisher, and you can the movies and you think about killing. But I was on a path to where I was gonna act it out. Like, I was fantasising it, so I had my mum take me to training for the first time.

‘Once you start fantasising enough about it, you start putting yourself in situations to act out the fantasy. And training allowed me an outlet for the fantasy to stop. I would train, I’d fight, I would train, I’d fight. But if it wasn’t for that, I fantasize about it all the time.’

Strickland’s words and actions over the years led to one other UFC fighter saying he doesn’t want to be on the same card as him, let alone in the same match.

Bantamweight star Sean O’Malley admitted in 2021 that he was worried he would be murdered by Strickland if they shared a card.

Speaking on the BroMalley Show podcast, he said: ‘Oh, I can’t get on the Sean Strickland card. I am scared that he might f****** murder me. Like actually, I probably would not want to be around that dude. 

‘He kind of seems like a f****** freak and psychopath. Like if he had a chance to kill someone, he probably would do it. So it’s like I wouldn’t even want to fight on that m***********’s card.’

Though he’s registered 15 wins in his nine years in the UFC, Strickland will likely be more remembered for his bizarre rants outside the octagon.

Arsenal ‘have been shocked by William Saliba’s wage demands amid PSG interest’ as Gunners struggle to agree a new deal with the highly-rated defender

• Arsenal are prepared to treble William Saliba’s wages to keep him at the club 
• Talks began prior to the World Cup but a new contract has yet to be agreed
• The highly rated defender only has one year remaining on his Arsenal deal

By Michael Pavitt For Mailonline

Published: 19:57 EDT, 30 May 2023 | Updated: 20:00 EDT, 30 May 2023

An anonymous masked TikToker has lifted the lid on the ‘Wild West’ of the dark web, after claiming to have found a bizarre yet disturbing array of items. 

On the surface, coke cans, iPhones and KSI‘s Prime drinks are quite ordinary things you can widely purchase on the internet.

But influencer Red Mask (@maskred) suggests a trip to the web’s darker side may give different results, having been sent bottles brimming with hotdogs, taped up devices and even creepy dolls. 

‘There’s a lot I can’t show on social media which I imagine would shock and surprise a lot of people,’ he told MailOnline. 

‘It’s like the Wild West where it seems as though anything and everything is available. Some of it may be scams, some of it may never arrive. That’s the risk you take. It’s not a safe place and not somewhere I recommend you do your shopping.’ 

The 30-year-old from East London began unwrapping his dark web parcels on TikTok in January, amassing an audience of more than 150,000 followers in three months.

While many of his purchases are things that are used, eaten or drank in day-to-day life, RedMask claims he would never dream of doing this.

‘There’s a user who sells everything and anything and I thought it would be interesting to try and purchase regular items which always seem to involved something odd,’ he said.

‘A lot of the time things come and seem normal but there is always something off.’

The dark web is a part of the internet that is generally hidden from public view and  not indexed by conventional search engines such as Google.

Accessing this part of the internet requires use of a specific browser such as Tor or i2p which hides your location and browsing activity.

Searching on the dark web is not illegal in itself, but it is home to marketplaces selling both strange and unlawful products including weapons, counterfeit currency and drugs.

RedMask continued: ‘I would recommend you find someone who has experience navigating the dark web before trying to dive right in. 

‘You can open yourself up to having your information hacked and stolen with one wrong move. You can also stumble onto some pretty gnarly stuff that you probably don’t want to see.

‘There is all the things you expect like gore and NSFW content but I think the most unsettling things I’ve come across are the huge databases of hacked passwords and bank details. 

‘I managed to find my own data had been hacked along with millions of other people. This was available to buy for a small price. You wouldn’t believe some of the email passwords that were available.’

iPhones filled with strange photos and phone numbers are among some of the more disturbing purchases Red Mask claims to have made.

In one TikTok, RedMask films himself unboxing a phone wrapped in masking tape alongside a blurry polaroid photo.

World War I tins appearing to contain Nazi medals, a Prime bottle with a written address attached and a ‘haunted’ doll are among numerous other purchases he claims to have made. 

‘I threw the doll out almost immediately as I feel like it must have a tracker or a small camera or something,’ RedMask said. 

‘I get my packages delivered to a few different secure drop off points and when I picked up this doll I had the feeling someone was watching me the whole time. So I made sure to take a different route home just to be sure no one was following.’

Objects filled with beans are a common theme of the purchases made by RedMask, including a Starbucks drink, a coke can and a coconut.

This has sparked some scepticism among followers about how genuine his videos are, with some accusing the parcels of being ‘homemade to get likes’.

Global Security Advisor Jake Moore at ESET also added that there is ‘no proof these videos are even representing genuine dark web purchases’.

He said: ‘The problem with buying anything on the internet is that the buyer has no knowledge with what they are truly buying, let alone confidence or insurance in the sale which can leave people vulnerable. 

‘The seller, however, will know the purchaser’s postal address which makes such purchases one sided and potentially slightly more dangerous.

‘The dark web can be used for staying anonymous online which can be useful for when users are mindful of their privacy. But once payment is included, there is no assurance the item or service will even arrive due to seller anonymity as well as no official platform to complain to.

‘There is also no proof these videos are even representing genuine dark web purchases so people need to be very wary of the videos their algorithms are providing them.’

When approached about the truth of his videos, RedMask said: ‘People should always be wary of the content their algorithms provide them…question everything.’

Shocked mother spots venomous snake in her daughter’s shoe – so would YOU have seen it?

• Kym Beechey, from Jilliby, was on her front porch when she got a surprise

By Michael Havis For Mailonline

Published: 10:16 EDT, 5 May 2023 | Updated: 10:32 EDT, 5 May 2023