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.
Britons have finally received some good news about the weather with temperatures expected to reach 30 degrees this weekend .
USUALLY full to bursting, these London Underground stations stand silent and completely commuter free .
SPLASHING in the water and fighting in-between rocks, these energetic tigers enjoy their fun-filled morning .
CLIMBING, falling and tugging on his weary mum, this little orangutan is up to all kinds of trouble .
Marina Afonina, now 51, from Northampton, met Ioan Budea in 2006 .
PERCHED on a branch, this Little Owl plays third wheel to two love birds .
Walking down the street in her local town, heads turn as Jessica Villafane passes by .
A TEN-THOUSAND square foot wide Avatar-style grove is such a beauty it will leave you feeling VINE .
A diver attempts to control rising numbers of lionfish by feeding the venomous species to Caribbean reef sharks .
Two sisters from Hampshire who suffered botched nose jobs have spent £19 .
A BIKINI swim with jellyfish sounds like the most painful past-time on the planet .
RAISING his flipper, this two day old seal pup gives a wave to the camera .