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
WOMAN’S 12YO SON BECAME HUMAN FIREBALL AFTER ‘TIKTOK FIREBALL CHALLENGE’ WENT WRONG – NOW HE’S SCARRED FOR LIFE
A mother-of-two has revealed how her son became a human fireball after a dangerous 'TikTok challenge' went wrong .
PARKING UP THE WRONG TREE - ROBIN RELIANT FOUND HANGING IN GARDEN
This Robin Reliant appears to have taken a wrong turn after it ended up 15 feet high up in a TREE .
BATHING BEAR CUB
A carefree bear cub reclines in the water with his feet raised in the air .
STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHS CAPTURE TORONTO'S BEAUTY IN PUDDLES
A Canadian photographer has captured crystal clear mirror images of Toronto's architecture reflected in puddles - simply by using his iPhone .
INDONESIAN TRIBE UNTOUCHED BY MODERN LIFE
An Italian photographer travelled to the highlands of New Guinea where he met an Indonesian tribe untouched by the modern world .
REAL LIFE VICTORIAN
A woman has taken her house back in time - by spending £10,000 to transform it into her Victorian dream home .
CHEEKY OWL’S UNUSUAL LANDING SPOT
An owl swoops through the air before making an unorthodox landing - right on top of an unsuspecting man's head .
SNEAKY OTTER
A young otter wades through a lake with his eyes set on an older rival’s fish .
GIRL GROWS BACK FACE AFTER ONE IN MILLION ALLERGIC REACTION
A teenage girl has grown back her entire face after being struck down by a rare skin disease .
STAR-TI-LING: 40,000 STARLINGS MIMIC HITCHCOCK'S THE BIRDS
STAR-TI-LING: 40,000 STARLINGS MIMIC HITCHCOCK'S THE BIRDS- This could be the fearsome scene from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds as a flock of 40,000 starlings bask in the heat of a wonderful British sunset .
ABANDONED TEXTILE MILL
HUNDREDS of colour coordinated yarns lie abandoned in this once thriving textile mill .
PEE-TRIFIED: WOMAN HAS IRRATIONAL FEAR OF TOILETS
A woman with an irrational fear of toilets goes POTTY on the loo and runs away when she flushes, terrified it will swallow her up .