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.
An Australian explorer has travelled the globe with a toy pig, known as Travel Piggy, in search of a missing cuddly companion .
A talented artist has created artwork with a KICKIN' twist by painting on his pregnant wife's bump .
Meet the world's most lifelike Disney princess - a 21-year-old man from California .
A photographer from the United Arab Emirates travelled to Pakistan where he captured the lives of local people in a series of expressive portraits .
A teacher has told how she was attacked by a murderer on her way home from a night out but courageously managed to charm him out of strangling her .
A brave cricket takes his chances as he sits on top of this green papua tree frog .
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 .
An Italian photographer travelled to Chile where he visited several star-gazing sites, home to some of the world's most advanced telescopes, located in the spectacular setting of the Atacama desert .
A woman who was addicted to GREGGS has lost 9st after giving up her favourite food .
A woman has been left unable to smile after undergoing emergency surgery to remove infected lip fillers .
CREATED over 60 years ago, this weighty machine was the Photoshop of its time .
A young mum-to-be who was told she would never fall pregnant due to a rare condition has decided to keep her miracle baby even though his birth could leave her paralysed and in pain forever .