Must Reads

A loving farmer spent all night carving a proposal message into a hill - with 300ft letters. Romantic Ben Wolfe spent all night meticulously carving "Marry Me" in giant letters on one of his hills to surprise girlfriend Lacey Jordan. Ben, 29, kept the whole scheme under wraps for days, and took veterinary nurse Lacey on a romantic walk first thing in the morning - so he could pop the question. The entire plan was accidentally revealed by pilot Dave...

A corrupt police officer who stashed half a million pounds worth of seized drugs at his home has been ordered to pay back just £135,000 today (Tues). Disgraced inspector Keith Boots, 55, had his assets seized after he stashed enough narcotics at his home "to keep a 1970s rockstar and his band entertained''. Boots, along with his son Ashley Boots, 30, appeared via video link from Doncaster prison, South Yorks., in Leeds Crown Court today (Tues). Boots had been jailed...

A prolific swindler has been jailed for assuming the identity of a dead man to illegally claim almost £100,000 in benefits. Robert Lewis, 61, had a false driving licence and National Insurance number in the name of Mark Shales, a court heard. He was paid around £20,000 a year through a combination of benefits from Exeter City Council and the Department for Work and Pensions. But it turned out that Mr Shales had died in Jersey in 1995 aged 33....

A professional rubbish remover has been jailed for repeatedly dumping builders' waste. Robbie Frank Johnston, 32, had a licence to collect commercial waste but he illegally disposed of it in picnic areas and bridleways. The huge mounds of rubble included carpets,baths, mattresses, and garage doors which were left to rot. But much of the waste was traced back to residents who identified Johnston and even provided photographic evidence of the van he used. He was tracked via the DVLA in...

A councillor who walked into a police station to report a serious crime was arrested and locked up - in a case of mistaken identity. Cllr Afzal Shah is a member of his local Police and Crime panel and Labour councillor for the second-most ethnically diverse ward in his city. But when he walked into his local police station to report a crime on behalf of constituents - officers nicked him for an alleged offence of making threats of violence....

The rollout of universal credit has resulted in an unprecedented rise in demand for food banks in the UK, according to a report from the Trussell Trust. The network of 428 food banks distributed more than 1.3 million emergency parcels for three days' worth of food over the last 12 months, a 13 per cent increase compared to the previous year. They said an increasing number of people — 28 per cent of all referrals — were going to their food...

The shocking findings, from a survey of 2,000 UK adults, revealed 43 per cent are short of the cash they need to pay the bills an average of seven months each year.

Adam Bradford, 25, claims to have suffered a torrent of abuse online after sordid details of the work carried out by Hans Asperger, the eminent doctor, emerged this week

Paul Johnson was while working as a music teacher when he abused four children