A violent bully broke into his ex girlfriend's house and held her hostage in an ordeal of "uncontrolled viciousness" during which he forced an angry dog to BITE her. He used the growling and irate dog as a weapon during the horrendous attack and later kept his victim prisoner in her own home for 57 hours. A court was told that he was "completely off his head" and threatened to kill his ex girlfriend with scissors. The traumatised victim described...

A racist thug who tore off a Muslim woman's hijab and tried to wrap it round her neck in an unprovoked street attack has been jailed. Jake Hammersley, 25, yanked his victim's headscarf down before tightening it around her neck and punching her in the face. Moments later a mass brawl between his group of yobs and a group of Asian men erupted in Normacot, Stoke-on-Trent. The 29-year-old victim, who is a nurse and a carer, was left with a...

Recently, I saw an episode of Channel 4’s “Naked Attraction”. If you haven’t had the pleasure, the shtick is pretty simple: a contestant whittles down six hopefuls to one as they are gradually revealed, well, naked, then they go on a date. I don’t imagine that creative meeting was an especially long one. Anyway, it’s a fairly ghastly programme, obviously meant to titillate but, I thought, oddly sexless. That, however, was not what struck me most. What did was the...

Picture this. It’s Thursday afternoon. You’re sat in the office staring blankly at an inbox full of passive aggressive emails from your client. You’ve got a meeting in ten minutes but you haven’t prepared a thing - partly due to a lingering hangover from after-work drinks, but mainly because you have a to-do list as long as your arm. You get that sinking feeling because you know have to tick it all off before the weekend – but deep down...

A daughter who emigrated to Florida had the shock of her life - after spotting her dead mum watering the plants outside the family's old home on Google Earth. Denise Underhill was doing housework when she started thinking about her late mum Beryl Turton, who had died 18 months earlier aged 86. While browsing her mum's old street in Polesworth, Tamworth, Staffs., on Google she was stunned when she saw a picture of her mum tending to the flower beds....

A pensioner is living in fear of a flock of seagulls who are attacking her every time she goes in and out of her home. Linda Boylen, 61, says up to 15 birds have bombarded her during 'five weeks of hell'. The problem began when three chicks fell from a nest on a neighbour's property onto her patio. The parents of the young see Linda as a threat and have been fiercely protecting them - aided by other birds who...

This shocking clip shows the moment a middle-aged man only narrowly missed plunging into rocks after jumping 65ft into the sea, at a piece of the coast known to be very dangerous. The unknown man landed awkwardly on his back after leaping from a spot known as Dead Man's Cove in Plymouth. He was filmed carrying out the 'tombstoning' attempt less than a year after father-of-three Vincent Wagstaff plunged into the sea at the same place and died from multiple...

A glorious sunrise caught on a mackerel sky over Normanton, West Yorkshire. A glorious sunrise caught on a mackerel sky over Normanton, West Yorkshire. The term is used when the sky is full of rows of cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds displaying in an undulating and rippling pattern similar in appearance to the fishes scales. A glorious sunrise caught on a mackerel sky over Normanton, West Yorkshire.

A dad-of-three nearly died eating CHERRY stones - after discovering they contained CYANIDE. Matthew Creme, 29, had been enjoying the fruit and decided to munch on the stones. He opened the stones and found a nut inside, which he tried and found to have a cherry almond flavour - unaware of the dangerous poison. As he became increasingly unwell, his temperature soared - prompting his worried partner Georgina Mason, 23, to call NHS medical line 111. Matthew Creme pictured in...