By AIDAN RADNEDGE, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER

Published: 10:55 EST, 9 February 2026 | Updated: 11:04 EST, 9 February 2026

Lindsey Vonn’s horror crash in the women’s downhill ski event at the Winter Olympics was caused when she caught a gate with her right side, one photograph has shown. 

The former Olympic champion, 41, has been left in intensive care following the incident on Sunday, although it is understood that she was transferred there for the sake of extra privacy, rather than any greater medical necessity. The US team have also stated the 2010 gold medallist is ‘stable’.

Vonn had been competing in Cortina following a six-year hiatus from the sport and only nine days on from rupturing the ACL in her left knee in a training run crash ahead of the Games.

But Vonn was just 13 seconds into her run and had rounded the second corner when she appeared to lose control.

The 41-year-old sped over a hill and careered into one of the plastic markers on the side of the track before hitting the ground. Her right leg appeared to hit the ground first, as a cloud of powder engulfed the American. Vonn then tumbled forwards again, appearing to smash her shoulder into the ground, before coming to a halt on the slope. 

The Cortina crowd fell silent as medical crews arrived to attend to Vonn, who was later airlifted off the mountain. 

Distressing scenes then erupted, with Vonn, whose skis had not detached from her boots, seen wincing in pain as she lay on her back in the snow. The American was also heard crying out in agony as the medics placed her onto a stretcher. 

And, a photo from AP, moments before Vonn’s crash, shows the skier careering into the ski gate while she was in the air and speeding down the mountain. 

Her right arm appeared to be on the wrong side of the gate and the force of her body could be seen in how the ski gate had been knocked, with it seemingly snapping.

Vonn went tumbling seconds after colliding into the gate, with her body rotating 180 degrees before her heavy crash.  

Organisers then began to play background music over the skier’s cries as she was lifted onto a stretcher.

An update provided by the US Ski and Snowboard Team on X later explained that Vonn had sustained an injury but was in a stable condition, before she then had surgery on a left-leg fracture. 

‘Update: Lindsey Vonn sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians,’ a spokesperson had said.

The 41-year-old had defied the impossible by coming back to compete after rupturing her ACL prior to the Games and had completed multiple training runs in the build-up to Sunday’s event. 

While concerns have arisen over whether the 2010 Olympic champion was taking a risk in entering the competition – having undergone a reconstruction in her right knee back in 2024 and rupturing her ACL before the tournament – Vonn had made the decision to compete in Sunday’s downhill final. 

She had posted a time that was 1.39 seconds off the fastest run during a training session on Friday. 

The American, who has won 84 World Cups across multiple alpine skiing events during her glittering career, would improve on that on Saturday, posting a time of one minute and 38 seconds, which was 37 seconds shy of team-mate Breezy Johnson, who went on to claim gold on Sunday. 

As Vonn left the gates on Sunday, her coach was heard shouting, ‘keep charging, keep pushing’.  

The downhill event was subsequently suspended, with other competitors removing their skis at the top of the slope as they waited for Vonn to be evacuated.

BBC pundit and former alpine skier Chemmy Alcott was distressed by the scenes unfolding in Cortina d’Ampezzo. 

‘I feel guilty that I am this emotional,’ Alcott said to the BBC. ‘I just never believed it would end in a clump at the side of the piste, not moving. What we saw was that the top of the piste is really hard for a fit athlete; she just had her right knee. It is brutal, think about her family, her team and herself.

‘We have to be realistic. The risk was really high, the risk she takes when she falls will double that, her body will not be able to take that. There is clapping and there is hope that she would be okay but they have put up some background music because it is uncomfortable.’ 

Sitting opposite me, looking me dead in the eye, my patient swore blind that he had stopped drinking. Very convincing he was, too, as he detailed how he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol in months.

The only problem was that his blood tests told a rather different story. His liver function was through the roof. When I gently pointed this out, he paused, before saying: ‘Well, maybe the odd glass of wine with dinner.’

After further probing, it transpired that the ‘odd glass’ was a bottle and a half. Every night.

I wasn’t shocked. Not because I’m cynical but because I know, from experience, that patients lie to their doctors all the time.

Research by online pharmacy MedExpress in 2024 revealed that 73 per cent of Britons said they had lied to medical professionals. 

It’s a staggering figure, especially once you consider that 45 per cent of those surveyed believed that their dishonesty had delayed their diagnosis or treatment. .

And it’s not just alcohol people lie about, although that’s certainly the big one.

People also mislead about taking their medication, how much they exercise (or rather, don’t), what they eat, whether they smoke and about their sex lives and sexual health.

Bowel habits are another topic people often gloss over. Although I don’t condone it, I understand why. These are personal, sometimes embarrassing subjects.

Nobody wants to confess that they haven’t been to the gym since 2019, that they’ve been skipping their blood pressure tablets or suffer frequent bouts of constipation.

The reality is that we doctors nearly always know, or at least have our suspicions that our patients are not being entirely honest. We are trained to pick up on inconsistencies.

If someone tells me they barely drink but their blood results suggest otherwise, that’s a red flag. If someone claims to be taking their medication religiously but their condition isn’t improving in the way it should, I have questions. 

I see diabetic patients who swear they never touch anything sweet, then their HbA1c blood test comes back revealing that can’t possibly be true.

Some then admit they only followed the diet in the week before the blood test, not realising that HbA1c measures the damage done to red blood cells by sugar over the previous three months. 

If a patient tells me they exercise regularly but they’re breathless walking from the waiting room to my consulting room, something doesn’t add up.

Sometimes it’s body language. A slight hesitation, a glance away, a vague answer where a specific one was needed. We are not interrogators, but years of clinical experience teach you to read people.

What concerns me far more than the lying itself, though, is why people do it and how damaging it can be.

I might attribute symptoms to one cause when the real culprit is something the patient hasn’t told me about. I might prescribe a medication that interacts badly with something they’re secretly taking, or fail to screen for a condition because I’ve been given false reassurances.

In the worst cases, a lie can delay a diagnosis.

So why do people do it? Fear of judgment is a big factor. Many patients assume their doctor will think less of them, lecture them or write them off if they admit to bad habits, especially if they’ve been warned about them in the past. I promise you, we won’t.

We genuinely do not have the time or inclination to judge. We’ve seen and heard it all before and very little surprises us.

There’s something deeper going on, too. As a psychiatrist, I recognise that much of this dishonesty is driven by denial, one of the most powerful and primitive defence mechanisms we have. 

Denial isn’t simply about deceiving your doctor, it’s about deceiving yourself, too. If you don’t say something out loud, if you avoid it altogether, then on some level it feels less real.

The obese patient who insists they eat healthily and never snack isn’t just lying to me, they’ve told themselves that story so many times they half believe it. The heavy drinker who says it’s ‘only a couple’ has re-framed reality to make it tolerable. This is entirely human and we all do versions of this in our daily lives.

But in a medical setting, it can be dangerous. Denial keeps people from confronting problems that need confronting. It delays treatment. It can, in extreme situations, even cost lives.

So, next time you see your doctor, I implore you to be honest. Not because lying is wrong but because your health will depend on it. We are on your side and we want to help. But we can only do that if we know what we’re actually dealing with.

The consulting room should be the one place where you don’t have to put on an act. So please take advantage of that and tell us the truth.

My fears for Bea and Eugenie

I can’t help feeling sorry for the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie as the Epstein files continue to reveal the true extent of their parents’ appalling behaviour.

The sisters are said to be ‘aghast’ and ‘mortified’. Beyond the shock, there is the shame. And shame is one of the most corrosive emotions there is.

It is not the same as guilt. Guilt says ‘I did something bad’. Shame says ‘I am bad’. 

What makes this so psychologically cruel is that Beatrice and Eugenie have done nothing wrong, yet they are carrying the shame of their parents.

This is something I see regularly at work: Children absorbing a sense of disgrace that belongs to a parent. 

It can be damaging to identity and self-worth. 

But nobody should maintain a relationship purely because of a blood tie, especially if doing so causes real pain. Loyalty has its limits. 

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is walk away.

Have we been failing to spot autism in girls? A landmark study suggests we have. 

By tracking 2.7million people born between 1985 and 2022, the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that while boys were far more likely to be diagnosed with autism in childhood, girls caught up during adolescence. 

By the age of 20, the diagnostic rate between the sexes was almost equal. 

Girls tend to be better at ‘masking’, mimicking their peers in social situations to fit in, which can conceal the very traits clinicians look for. 

As a result, many girls and women are misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression or personality disorders. 

I have seen women in their 20s, 30s, sometimes older, finally getting an autism diagnosis after years of feeling that something was different about them. 

A new study analysing 19million cancer cases in nearly 200 countries has found that 38 per cent of cancers are attributable to 30 lifestyle factors. 

Smoking is the biggest preventable cause but infections, such as HPV, account for one in ten. 

Dr Max Prescribes… The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz 

This beautifully written book by psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz draws on his 25 years of clinical practice to explore the stories we tell ourselves and, crucially, the ones we hide from. 

Through short case studies, he reveals how self-deception shapes our lives in ways we rarely acknowledge. It’s very relevant to my main piece: the lies we tell our doctors are often the same lies we tell ourselves. This will make you consider your own blind spots.

Donald Trump is sending 35 criminal illegal aliens back to the UK amid his immigration crackdown that triggered shockwaves across America and the world.

The Britons feature on a list of shame dubbed the ‘worst of the worst’ drawn up and published by Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

It means more ‘worst of the worst’ criminals are being deported back to the UK from America than to Afghanistan or Iraq. There are 19 Afghans on the list, and 31 Iraqis.

A Daily Mail analysis of the countries of origin of the ‘worst of the worst’ illegal migrants also shows more are being sent back to the UK than France, Germany and Italy combined.

France is receiving nine, Germany eight, and Italy 10.

Offenses committed by the Britons include homicide, drug trafficking, sexual exploitation of minors, fraud, and making bomb threats.

Those on the list include three British women.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said more than half of the 35 British criminals – 22 of them – had already been deported.

She told the Daily Mail: ‘If you break the law, you will face the consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the US.

‘The 35 criminal illegal aliens from the UK listed on the Worst of the Worst website [have] criminal histories including multiple counts of homicide, enticement of a minor, lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, robbery, assault, aggravated assault, weapons offenses, and drug trafficking.

’22 of these criminal illegal aliens have already been removed from the US.

‘Under President Trump’s and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s leadership, DHS has already removed more than 700,000 illegal aliens.’

It comes as Trump, Noem and ICE are embroiled in turmoil in the wake of the recent fatal shootings of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration agents in Minneapolis.

The ‘worst of the worst’ list – which is expected to grow – reflects the approach of Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who has been at odds with Noem over how best to enforce the president’s immigration policies.

Noem pursued a strategy of high-profile raids to round up as many illegal immigrants as possible, sometimes joining operations herself in tactical gear and taking TV cameras along.

Homan has argued for a more targeted approach to capture and deport the ‘worst of the worst’ illegal alien criminals – like the ones featured on the list of shame.

In the wake of the fatal ICE shootings Trump sent Homan to Minneapolis to ‘fix’ the problem there.

Homan subsequently confirmed that future immigration operations would be ‘targeted’ against specific individuals.

The list of shame so far also features 25 criminals from Russia and 34 from Ukraine.

There are 137 from China, 347 from Venezuela, and 62 from Somalia, according to an analysis by the Daily Mail.

In total, the number of illegal aliens so far featured on the ‘worst of the worst’ list was 20,249 as of January 28.

The country with by far the most citizens on it is Mexico with 9,739.

The 35 UK-origin criminals represent only a portion of the total removals to the UK under Trump’s widespread immigration crackdown.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the three women on the ‘worst of the worst’ list include Raechal Wood, who it said had a conviction for drug possession and was detained by ICE in Florida.

Jessica Bell Tulloch had convictions for offenses including robbery and was arrested in New Jersey, according to the DHS.

Rosalie McCann was convicted of identity theft and held in Pennsylvania, the list showed.

Also on the ‘worst of the worst’ list was Sean Bourne, who was shown as convicted of homicide and assaulting a police officer, and detained in Orlando, Florida.

Shawn Winston Percival Lee was listed as convicted of homicide, and detained in New York, according to the DHS.

Harry Stacey was convicted of drug trafficking in Bentonville, Arkansas, the department said.

Richard Castle was convicted of offenses including ‘sexual exploitation of minor’ and arrested in Springfield, Missouri, according to the ‘worst of the worst’ list.

The DHS says the list was produced to ‘highlight the worst of worst criminal aliens arrested by ICE’.

‘Under Secretary Kristi Noem’s leadership, the hardworking men and women of DHS and ICE are fulfilling President Trump’s promise and carrying out mass deportations – starting with the worst of the worst – including the illegal aliens you see here,’ it says.

Noem is currently under heavy pressure over her handling of the Good and Pretti shootings.

She called Good, an unarmed mother, a ‘domestic terrorist,’ and suggested Pretti was ‘brandishing’ a gun, which videos from the scene showed he was not.

On Monday, Trump held a two-hour meeting with her in the Oval Office before sending Homan to Minneapolis, but the president has said she will stay in her job.

Olivia Colman has said she has always ‘felt sort of nonbinary’ as the actress opened up about her identity in a new interview.

Olivia, 52, who is best known for her roles in The Crown, The Favourite and Heartstopper and has been married to her husband Ed Sinclair for 25 years, said she has never felt comfortable with rigid gender roles, including in her own marriage.

The actress, who is promoting her new role in queer film Jimpa, explained: ‘Throughout my whole life, I’ve had arguments with people where I’ve always sort of felt nonbinary.

‘I’ve never felt massive feminine in my being female. I’ve always described myself to my husband as a gay man.

‘And he goes ‘yeah I get that’. And so I do feel at home and at ease.’ 

She added to Them: ‘I don’t really spend a whole lot of time with people who are very staunchly heterosexual… The men I know and love are very in touch with all sides of themselves.’

‘I think with my husband and I, we take turns to be the ‘strong one,’ or the one who needs a little bit of gentleness. I believe everyone has all of it in them. I’ve always felt like that.’

‘I’m not alone in saying, ‘I don’t feel like it’s binary.’ And I loved that. I came away from making this film with, Yeah, I knew I wasn’t alone.

Nonbinary is a term used to describe a person’s gender identity that falls outside the traditional male and female binary.

Olivia and Ed married in 2001, and share three children – Finn, 20, Hall, 18, and a ten-year-old daughter, after falling in love in the nineties while rehearsing for a Cambridge Footlights production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Table Manners. At the time, Olivia was studying teaching at Homerton College, Cambridge.

Ed was an actor before he became a screenwriter and film producer. He wrote the 2021 Sky drama series Landscapers starring Olivia and David Thewlis, and recently produced The Roses starring Olivia and Benedict Cumberbatch as a husband and wife at war. 

Recalling the first time she saw him, Olivia added: ‘I’d gone to two of the rehearsals and there was no one particularly fanciable there. Then I walked in and I saw his left-hand profile. 

‘At the time he was smoking a ciggie, his feet were crossed, and he’s got this lovely bump in his nose and I saw his side profile and just went, oh my God, I’m going to marry him. ‘I had proper thunderbolts: that’s him, that’s him! Poor thing, he didn’t know.’ 

In a typically self-deprecating manner, Olivia claimed that while she vividly remembers the first time she met Ed, the feeling wasn’t mutual. ‘He genuinely can’t remember it,’ she said. 

She previously told the Daily Mail in 2013: ‘My husband and I were very lucky. We met when we had nothing and we loved each other then. So we were all right.

‘We were 20 and he was also an actor. If you meet at that age then you’re fine.’

Last year Olivia revealed the surprising secret behind her long-lasting marriage, admitting that they don’t argue. 

‘It’s our 25th wedding anniversary next year. We’ve been together 31 years,’ Olivia told the Good Hang podcast. 

Asked why she thinks they’ve lasted so long, she replied, ‘We’re not big fighters, which apparently isn’t very healthy. 

‘We have learned over the years – but really late on actually – to sometimes [think], if that was annoying, just wait. 

‘And it doesn’t work for everyone, I know that, but I think it’s much better to wait until the calmer moments to go, ‘Can we talk about that moment? I did find that a little weird and is that OK that I’m saying this and yes I was a bit cross that day…’ 

The actress, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2018 for her role in The Favourite opposite Emma Stone, added she’s still physically attracted to Ed all these years later. 

‘He’s my best friend and I fancy him, which is quite nice,’ she said. 

The couple married in 2001 after dating for seven years. She has previously said he plays a very supporting role at home. 

‘He’s always there when I’m feeling like I did a bad job or something, so we’re there to pick each other up,’ she has said. 

Joking about his career switch from actor to screenwriter, she added, ‘We worked out very early on that it’s much better if he’s a writer, I’m an actor and we don’t talk about it. It’s much easier not to talk about the work.’ 

Olivia’s comments come as she stars in new queer film Jimpa which tells the story of Hannah (Colman), mother to nonbinary child Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde), as they travel to Amsterdam to visit Frances’s grandpa Jim (John Lithgow).

When Frances decides they want to stay in Amsterdam to live with their grandfather, Hannah is forced to re-evaluate her parenting and her relationship with her child.

The film is directed by and based on Sophie Hyde’s real-life experience, with John’s character based on her own ‘gay activist’ father, and stars her own trans non-binary child Aud Mason-Hyde as Frances.

Olivia previously spoke to Vanity Fair about playing a character that was based on the film’s director.

She said: ‘I haven’t had that before. [Laughs] I felt quite nervous at the beginning, but very soon, Sophie just made you feel like you can’t go wrong. It’s your interpretation. It’s you doing it. And she just let me crack on with it, really.’

Olivia has previously won praise for her roles in LGBTQ+ fare, winning the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in period drama The Favourite, where she played Queen Anne, who engages in a same-sex affair with Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough.

She also starred as Sarah Nelson, the mother of bisexual teenager Nick in the Netflix series Heartstopper, and was lauded by fans for a heartwarming scene where her son came out to her. 

By PADRAIC FLANAGAN

Published: 19:20 EST, 7 February 2026 | Updated: 21:15 EST, 7 February 2026

King Charles feels he has ‘no option’ but to provide for his ‘unstable’ brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and wants to ‘contain’ him at Sandringham, palace sources say.

The former prince was booted out of the seven-bedroom Royal Lodge ‘under the cover of darkness’ after the latest release of the Epstein files uncovered yet more damning revelations of Andrew’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The King had felt he had to ‘remove him from the public gaze’ by ‘accelerating’ his eviction from his Windsor mansion, The Times said.

But his eviction will not push him far from the King’s sight, as his disgraced brother has temporarily moved to Wood Farm on the royal Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

Andrew, 65, is expected to move permanently to Marsh Farm, a quaint five-bedroom house nearby that is being renovated, before Easter.

A palace source told The Times: ‘The King feels he has no other option than to provide for his brother, who will be privately funded on a private estate.

‘Every time he’s tried to support himself by independent means, it has led to greater trouble. Containing him is the hope.’

After Andrew was stripped of his titles last October, the King has been subsidising him privately, covering his staff, living costs and security. Royal staff have been told they do not have to work for Andrew if they don’t feel comfortable, The Sun reported last week.

He is struggling to support himself financially, sources say, despite speculation he’d be sitting pretty on his mother’s inheritance and the cash from the sale of his multi-million-pound former homes.

It is not known how he has managed to get through all this money since he stepped back from royal duties after his infamous BBC Newsnight interview in 2019.

He got £15million from the sale of Sunninghill Park in 2007 – a 12-bedroom luxury estate given to him by his mother for his 1986 marriage to Sarah Ferguson. This was £3million over the asking price, which Andrew and Kazakh billionaire buyer Timur Kulibayev claim was to secure from another bidder.

More recently, he sold a seven-bedroom Swiss ski chalet in Verbier for a reported £17million which he had shared with Mrs Ferguson, by then his former wife. The couple had bought it for £16.6million in 2014 with a £13million mortgage, so it is unknown how much cash remained following the sale.

One large expenditure that could explain his dire straits is the multimillion-pound out-of-court settlement with the late Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she had been trafficked to Andrew by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell when she was 17, which he denies.

The Queen and Charles had to step in with private funds to help him pay this settlement, it is understood. 

The King, 77, was prompted to speed up Andrew’s eviction from Royal Lodge after being appalled by his brazen brother’s daily horse rides around Windsor Great Park past waiting photographers and camera crews, a friend said.

His majesty was heckled about Andrew by a member of the public in Essex on Thursday this week.

The friend told The Times: ‘The King is acutely aware of the public feeling. He doesn’t need to be heckled to understand the mood of the nation.

‘Accelerating him [Andrew] out of Royal Lodge last was another nod to show he gets it. A plan made is not the same as a plan enacted, and the King wanted that plan enacted asap.’

It was revealed last year that Andrew had not paid rent on Royal Lodge for more than two decades. He paid £1million to lease the property in 2003 and then spent £7.5million on renovations, but he has paid only ‘one peppercorn (if demanded)’ of rent a year since taking on the mansion, according to a copy of his agreement obtained by The Times.

Following the release of the Epstein files, Andrew has been under considerable pressure from The King and Keir Starmer to testify to the US Congress about his friendship with Epstein and Maxwell.

In this new tranche of files released, it was found that he had invited Epstein to Buckingham Palace in September 2010 following his stint under house arrest and probation after being convicted for procuring a girl under 18 for prostitution.

There are also new claims that a second woman was trafficked to Andrew, who he then took to tea at the Palace.

Other discoveries were a picture of him leering over a woman on the floor on all fours in what appears to be Epstein’s house in New York. Andrew has not commented publicly since the files’ release.

His former wife, Sarah Ferguson, is also under fire for her involvement with Epstein, with messages asking for money and even asking him to ‘marry me’.

In one 2010 email, she spoke of her daughter Princess Eugenie, then 19, saying: ‘Just waiting for Eugenie to come back from a shagging weekend!!’. She visited Epstein with her daughters shortly after his release from prison in 2009.

Mrs Ferguson has lived with Andrew at Royal Lodge despite their divorce 30 years ago, but she will not be moving to Norfolk with him, finding a place to stay elsewhere in Windsor. 

A beauty queen was crushed to death by her own car while she was unloading her belongings outside her university accommodation.

Eleisha Skinner, 21, who was crowned Miss Faversham in 2022, was studying at Buckinghamshire New University in High Wycombe when the tragedy unfolded.

She was moving her belongings from her car when it rolled backwards and pinned her against the wall of the university accommodation building. 

Her family said Eleisha was able to dial 999 while trapped and the emergency services were there within minutes. 

However, despite desperate efforts by her housemates and medical staff, she died in hospital days later on January 8.

It has been confirmed that the Buckinghamshire New University student will be posthumously awarded a BSc with honours in social work.

The 21-year-old was hugely popular in her hometown, and on Friday her family and scores of well-wishers gathered for a celebration of her life at St Mary of Charity Church. 

More than 200 people turned out to pay their respects at the funeral of the ‘beautiful, kind and selfless’ former carnival queen.

Her coffin was carried by horse and carriage past her old school, The Abbey, before making its way along East Street and up to the church.

It was a traditional ceremony, though mourners were invited to wear pink ties as a nod to Eleisha’s favourite colour.

The funeral heard tributes from her family, best friends and former teachers.

Reading on behalf of the Skinners, Rev Corcoran reflected on her love for Christmas, fashion and her family.

‘Stunning, confident and always beautifully herself,’ he said. 

‘Eleisha was the kind of person who made the world greater, just by being in it. Her impact was immense.

‘We will carry with us always our beautiful Eleisha, forever loved.’

Her older brother Kian reminisced about the last time the siblings spent one-on-one time together and their special bond, which went back to their childhoods.

‘I stand here today as a proud brother, who witnessed Eleisha develop into a brilliant woman,’ he said.

‘There will never be a person who can replace my little sister. God bless her, I will always love you, little sis.’

Eleisha’s grandfather, George, said: ‘We had the privilege of knowing you as a child, watching you grow up, supporting you, celebrating who you’ve become, and loving you unconditionally.

‘Eleisha cared fiercely, fiercely about the people she loved, family matters, friends matter, and love matters.

‘We will always be there for your mum and dad. Family was everything to you, and you mean everything to us.

‘Full of energy and mischief and joy. A presence that made everything brighter.’

Mother Clare Skinner has expressed her gratitude ‘for all the support, kind words and donations from people that knew and did not know Eleisha’.

A GoFundMe has been launched in Eleisha’s name for the Thames Valley Air Ambulance team, which the family say was ‘fantastic’. 

The helicopter emergency medical service paramedic attended in a critical care car and escorted her to the hospital.

In a tribute published after her death, her heartbroken parents, Nigel and Clare Skinner, said: ‘We are utterly devastated by the sudden loss of our precious girl. 

‘Writing these words feels unimaginable, yet we want the world to know who she truly was: a kind, selfless, passionate young woman who always put others before herself.

‘Nothing was ever too much for Eleisha. She had a heart of gold and a smile that could light up any room.’

A star pupil with a passion for learning, Eleisha thrived at school in Faversham, attending St Mary’s Primary School and later The Abbey.

She flourished academically and socially and was always eager to get involved – whether organising the school prom or fundraising for the Faversham Fire Brigade.

Despite her outgoing nature, her family were surprised when she decided to put herself forward for Miss Faversham in 2022.

Demonstrating her beauty both inside and out, Eleisha was crowned and went on to represent the town at events across the county.

She embraced the role with pride, raising money for local charities and Faversham Carnival Club, and loved attending dances and events where she formed lifelong friendships. 

She was later voted Miss Congeniality by the courts at the Miss Kent Dinner, which her family described as a ‘true reflection of her kind spirit’.

‘Eleisha was so proud of her court, and they placed at many events. The carnival community became like a second family to us,’ they said.

‘Her love for her town and her genuine personality shone through,’ said the Skinners.

An inquest into her death was opened this week at Beaconsfield Coroners Court and heard how the parked car had pushed her up against the university accommodation building.

A full inquest into Eleisha’s death will be held at the same venue on June 23.

By KATELYN CARALLE, SENIOR U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER

Published: 15:13 EST, 6 February 2026 | Updated: 01:26 EST, 7 February 2026

When is the best time to visit Skipton, ‘Gateway to the Dales’ and England’s newly crowned epicentre of national happiness?

Perhaps on a bright summer’s day, with the narrow boats gleaming on the Leeds and Liverpool canal and otters bobbing.

Or on Sheep Day, in June, when the roads are closed, the town is ovine crazy and a chap called Julian Kaye makes a special Sheeptown gin – ‘We use water from the canal and chuck in a few botanicals’.

Or perhaps during the big Christmas lights switch on and Santa Run, when around a sixth of the town’s 15,500 population dress up in full Father Christmas outfits and run through the cobbled streets.

But instead, I visit on a cold, grey, wet week in February. Café windows are dripping with condensation and the market stalls – selling everything from cauliflowers to scones the size of your head and dog beds – are battened down against the drizzle. Flat caps are pulled down, hard. 

But George the fishmonger, who has been up since 1am and is now serving from his van, is roaring cheery greetings.

‘Good morning, Brian! Ow are you? Morning, Mary! Ow’s your mum? This is Rebecca, her parents are the local undertakers!’ he says, waving around a pink langoustine.

‘I’ve been doing this for 38 years, so I know ‘em all and they’re all lovely, lovely people. The very best. Of course they’re happy. They live here!’ 

And through the drizzle, he tells me how much he loves his job, how he used to work with his wife, until she fell one New Year’s Eve and broke her shoulder and now he works with his son-in-law Nikky – and that while they bicker gently, it’s better than it was working with his wife.

He tells me how 80 per cent of his fish comes from the Shetlands, via his cousin, who also supplies Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City football squad, because Pep doesn’t like farmed fish.

Donald Ripley, nearly 92 and out buying teacakes to share with his ‘darling wife Kathleen’, is equally perky. 

‘What’s good about Skipton? Everything! I’ve lived here all my life. Never wanted to live anywhere else – why would I?’ he says.

‘It’s the people. It’s always the people – though, like anywhere, you always get one or two baddies. And sometimes you get free beer at the Working Men’s Club, so that’s quite a bonus. So yes, I’m happy.’

So is Julian Kaye, of Sheeptown gin fame, who runs the brilliant Wright Wine and Whisky Co.

Julian tells me how he was one of the original sponsors of the Calendar Girls, members of the nearby Rylstone Women’s Institute group who, in 1999, famously stripped naked for charity with carefully placed spider plants and buns, and were later immortalised in a film starring Helen Mirren, Julie Walters and Celia Imrie. 

‘Ros, who ran a dress shop from what is now our whisky room, was Miss November!’ he says.

And Jem Darling, 22, who works in the Black Horse pub on the High Street, tells me they’ve been flat out today with a funeral.

‘Never seen so many people go through so much food. They were really going for it. Very jolly crowd. They had a great time.’

Gosh. It feels a bit like a parallel universe. 

And it is easy to see why the recent survey by property website Rightmove saw the pretty town of Skipton in North Yorkshire pipping the London boroughs of Richmond-upon-Thames and Camden, as well as Woodbridge in Suffolk and nearby arch happiness rivals, Harrogate.

‘We’ve come second to Harrogate before,’ says Joe Langley, of Hardisty estate agents. ‘But they’re different – flashier, more obvious money. There are a lot of full pockets here, but we don’t walk about in Gucci loafers.

‘This is proper Yorkshire, so you’ll always find someone to stand with and talk.’ 

Which is important, because the glory was not just for happiness and access to nature and green spaces – revealed this week in another survey as the key things families look for – but also the friendliness of the residents and access to essential services, such as schools and transport.

Skipton boasts a few rather less essential things, too.

These include the 900-year-old castle off the High Street, one of the best preserved medieval castles in the country. 

For centuries it was the seat of the Clifford family but since the 1950s has been home to the Fattorini family – Italian jewellers who, I am told proudly by at least five locals, made the original FA Cup trophy.

And there’s the teeny but exquisite museum – which was shortlisted in a national museum contest alongside the National Portrait Gallery and the Young V&A – which has a priceless Shakespeare first folio on display that was discovered in a backroom cupboard under a sink only a few years ago.

As Jenny in Kutters hair salon puts it: ‘Nowhere’s perfect, is it? But there’s a lot to go at here. And at least people are friendly.’

She’s right. Stand in the street looking lost and people will come running to help.

Pop into one of the town’s 50-odd (yes, really) pubs and restaurants on your own, and you’ll be surrounded by friendly faces in minutes, sharing stories about how world famous pie makers Stanforth’s lost their crown to rivals Farmhouse Fare (apparently there was a fallout when the business was sold and the seller took the recipe with him).

Or how tickets for the annual ferret race extravaganza (next Wednesday evening, in nearby Appletreewick) sell out in one minute flat – ‘It’s like Glastonbury!’ – and that some furry runners are perked with a little tot of whisky.

And, in Donald’s case, about the shocking thing that’s happened to teacakes these days.

‘They used to be twice the size. They’re going to be scones before we know it!’ he cries.

But most of all today, everyone’s discussing happiness. What it means. Why it matters.

‘You don’t have to be jumping about saying, I’m happy, I’m happy, clapping your hands,’ says Debbie Brooksbank behind the bar in the Boat House. ‘It’s about being content.’

‘It’s not about having money or cars or stuff,’ says Peter Lockwood, of boat hire company Pennine Cruisers. ‘Not for us.’

The town’s lovely mayor, Councillor Winston Feather, puts it differently: ‘I’m not always the happiest person, but I’m so, so grateful to live here.’

And there’s a lot to be grateful for.

Skipton has good schools – two grammars and an academy that has recently been turned around – sports teams, a lovely leisure centre, walking groups, book groups, bridge clubs, a market four days a week, an actual bank and post office (albeit in a branch of Subway), theatre and a cinema, where I’m told several times that the premiere of Calendar Girls took place the day before the one in Leicester Square.

Crime figures are also relatively low – a good thing given the police station is open for only four hours a day and officers have to schlep over from Harrogate. There aren’t even holding cells here any more.

So, every once in a while, the head honcho of North Yorkshire Police (who lives in Skipton), puts on his full regalia – ‘stars and stripes and everything’ – and walks through town. 

Just to show a police presence . . . on his day off. But before we think we’re in an episode of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small which, naturally, was filmed nearby (‘Our good friend Andy the vet is the consultant hand that goes up the cow’s backside’ says Julian), it is important to remember that of course not everyone here is happy.

How could they be? There are always people having a bad time thanks to illness, grief, depression, poverty and loneliness.

Certainly, Jodie a hairdresser with pink-rinsed hair, seems to loathe it. ‘It’s not a happy place,’ she insists, crossly. 

‘My customers are always moaning – about everything from the world to the weather to the fact we have put our prices up from five pounds a cut to six – after five years!’

And Claire, 54, points out, quite rightly, that behind ‘all that bloody happiness’, the local food bank is in hot demand.

Another woman who doesn’t want to be named, whispers about a stabbing and even a murder, ‘only a few years back’. 

Also, while Skipton Building Society head office employs 900 people and there are good transport links to Leeds and Bradford, access to decent jobs is not as good as it could be, house prices are much higher than in any of the surrounding villages and so the young struggle a bit.

‘There’s a dark side to Skipton, like there is everywhere,’ says Debbie in the Boat House Bar. ‘A lot of youths smashing about in the bus station. I think there was even a glassing. They’re bored. No youth clubs. Not enough for them to do, like anywhere else.’

So I head to the bus station where today, happily, no one is smashing it up, and get chatting to Charlie who is 16 and studying business and waiting for a bus with his mates.

‘It’s all right here, I s’pose. There’s cafés and a cinema and somewhere to play football,’ he says. ‘But it’s quite boring. It can’t be the happiest place, surely? There’s got to be happier places than this!’

Okay, so, given a magic wand, what would he do? ‘Make the weather better,’ he says, without hesitation. ‘Or move to Monaco. Which sounds much nicer.’

Matt, meanwhile, who works in Bek’s Electrical shop and has lived here since his missus threw him out of their home in Castle Hill, is not a huge fan.

‘I wouldn’t die if I didn’t live here. My customers are a merry bunch, but prices are always rising. People keep going on about how bloody happy it is – but it’s all about visitors.’

Those visitors arrive by the coachload from spring onwards. But of course, they also bring their wallets, which is a good thing because there are a few empty shops dotted around.

And in the beautiful Holy Trinity Church, perched at the top of the High Street and dating back to the 12th century, the heating hasn’t worked for three years and the congregation have been cuddled up with hot water bottles and blankets.

Even the famous narrowboats have had a time of it, what with all the canals drying up. 

But now the hire companies have ditched holiday rentals and switched to day trips, with shiny boats called Bill and Ben, Jack and Jill and Wallace And Gromit.

‘It’s the end of an era,’ says Peter Lockwood. ‘But you’ve just got to get on with it, ‘aven’t you.’ 

Happily, the endless pubs, microbreweries and clubs are thriving – two more opened just this week.

Just don’t call it Little Ibiza, as some newspapers did last year when reports of the great nightlife here hit the Press.

‘We didn’t love that – that wasn’t really our thing,’ says Gerry, 54, eating a (Farmhouse Fare) pie on the bridge with her dog. 

‘We’re more about the chat here, really. We love to chat, about anything.’

Indeed. In the Castle Inn, Alison, 62, tells me that half the town is haunted – including my lovely hotel, The Woolly Sheep Inn. 

She insists there are secret tunnels, big enough for horses, running under the High Street and that she was at school with one of the Yorkshire Ripper’s early victims, who was three years older than her. 

‘Ooh, it was terrible. We weren’t allowed to walk around the town at all.’

Skipton is an extraordinary place. Not perfect, of course not. But it is warm, straightforward and so, so friendly – partly because people actually look at you rather than at their mobile phones as they walk about.

But the highlight is surely Skipton Sound Bar, a live music venue near the bus station with a special oldies afternoon on Wednesdays which, by 2.15pm, is rammed and booming with Northern Soul music.

‘You have to get here by two to get a seat,’ shouts Doreen, 84, looking gorgeous in a sparkly top and with a perfect blow dry.

‘My friend Joan’s coming on the bus from Ilkley Road and we usually stay till about nine and then go to a speakeasy round the corner afterwards, then a taxi home just to be safe!

‘Come and dance,’ she cries, and as she boogies off to groove with her pal Justine, it is impossible not to join in.

So, finally, what advice would they give to perk up the rest of us?

For Doreen, it’s: ‘Life’s too short to moan about the weather. Mind your own business, get out and enjoy yourself, have some fun.’

George the fishmonger says: ‘Just be content with what you’ve got. If you’ve got £100, don’t spend £110.’

But I think my favourite comes from Julian, who puts it like this: ‘I always say to my kids, “Your word’s your word and be nice”. If everyone lived by that, there wouldn’t be so much strife in the world, would there? Just be nice, it don’t take much.’