CANCER DRUG FIGHT DAD DIES, EVEN AFTER LYING TO GET TREATMENT

A former soldier who bravely took on penny-pinching NHS bosses in his fight against terminal cancer has died, aged 37. Mark Bannister's wife has revealed how her husband was forced to LIE to doctors in order to get the life-prolonging treatment he had been denied due to a cruel postcode lottery. But after wasting six months of precious time trying to obtain the drug Avastin, Mark's cancer was too advanced for the medicine to have any effect. The dad-of-two succumbed to the brain tumour he had been battling for nine years at around 6am on Monday morning, with his wife Karen, 33, at his side. In tribute to her husband, who served in Northern Ireland and Bosnia during nine years in the army, grieving Karen said: "The Avastin didn't have any effect but we had to fight for six months in order to get it. "In all that time his tumour had been growing. In the end, he had to claim that he was living at another address in order to get the treatment. Who knows what would have happened if he had got the drug sooner - I truly believe it would have helped him.

Other great stories
LIP FILLERS NEARLY KILLED ME

A woman left disfigured and traumatised by an addiction to lip filler injections has issued a warning to others searching for the perfect pout after the plastic chemicals nearly killed her .

TAXIDERMY ART BOOK

A KITTEN'S teaparty and rat's playing dominoes are the bizarre creations by one of Britain's great eccentrics pictured in an incredible new book .

MAGNIFICENT SNOWY OWL

An elegant snowy owl spreads her wings and glides effortlessly above the snow covered field .

WORLD’S MOST BLINGED-OUT CAR

FEAST your eyes on the £500K coin-covered Range Rover that could be the world’s most blinged-out car .

WOMAN OVERCOMES THIGH GAP OBSESSION AND BEATS ANOREXIA

A university graduate who was obsessed with achieving a thigh gap has told how she shrunk to just 6st after developing anorexia athletica .

CEMETERY FINES

A COUNCIL has come under fire for slapping fines on people’s GRAVESTONES for breaching petty regulations on pot plants .

WOMAN TELLS OF ORDEAL AFTER HORRIFIC ACID ATTACK

A woman who was left scarred for life by an acid attack orchestrated by her ex partner has told of her ordeal and her battled to rebuild her life .

SWIMMING WITH WHALE SHARKS

A diver looks like a minnow as she swims alongside a gigantic whale shark, the largest species of fish on the planet .

WORLD’S ONLY ONE ARMED PRO-DJ

DANCE guru Matt Howes leaves crowds in a spin when he gets behind the decks - as the world's only one-armed professional DJ .

GOING BALLISTIC - 15 FOOT RED BALL ARTIST

This is the crazy art project that is going ballistic - placing a huge squishy 15ft red ball into tight spaces .

EYE-OPENING INSIGHT INTO KENYA’S LARGEST DUMPING GROUND

PILES of trash provide a living for thousands in Nairobi, Kenya .

ABANDONED HOBBIT HOUSE

IN THE not so MISTY MOUNTAINS of Wiltshire, there lies an abandoned hobbit house .