Keyhole surgery is perhaps a misleading term: despite the technology, expertise and extreme finesse involved, it’s also hugely physical.
Sky News watches as surgeon Luke Jones performs an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction in an operating theatre in King Edward VII’s hospital in central London.
Mr Jones (male surgeons are referred to as Mr rather than Dr) doesn’t just remove a hamstring: he pulls it out with force.
Drills bore through bone. Flesh smokes as it is cauterised. There’s a fair amount of hammering: “Mallet, please,” Mr Jones asks his assistant.
The ACL is a small band of tissue running through the middle of the knee that keeps it stable.
But watching the operation, it’s easy to understand why tearing it is so devastating. Even though the patient will only have three tiny scars, their knee has taken a pummelling.
“There’s 90 minutes in theatre with me,” Mr Jones tells Sky News, adding: “And then there is one year of rehabilitation with your physiotherapist afterwards.”
That’s why ACL injuries are so feared, especially by one type of athlete: female footballers.
‘Way too many’ women’s players with ACL injuries
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Between 25 and 30 players – enough for an entire extra squad – will miss the upcoming World Cup because of ACL injuries. England stars Beth Mead and Leah Williamson have been ruled out. Data from ACL Women Football Club suggests 195 elite players have suffered the injury in the last year.
It has been described as an “epidemic”. And it is an epidemic that affects women far more than men: they are 2.5 to 3.5 times more likely to rupture an ACL than a male athlete. And we don’t really know why. Even as the women’s game has boomed, research has lagged behind.
One player who is going to the World Cup is England defender Jess Carter. Speaking before departure at St George’s Park, England’s national football centre, she tells Sky News: “There’s been way too many women’s players who have had ACL injuries and not enough research that’s been done about it.
“Why are there so many injuries? How can we prevent it? Why are they happening? A question I sometimes ask is: if this was happening to high profile men’s players, would more work be going in to try and improve things?”
Image: England’s Leah Williamson. Pic: AP
Nature versus nurture
The problem is that there isn’t just one answer.
“I’ve made a list the other day, and I think there are 30 reasons that have been discussed in the literature that I could find,” says Kat Okholm Kryger, a sports rehabilitation researcher at St Mary’s University Twickenham and a medical researcher for FIFA.
“And I think we can split it into two main categories. And I like to call them nature and nurture.
“So the nature is like the biology: the genes, the way the body is shaped and muscle mass, etc… But also the nurture of the environment that the women are in. So the way that young female players are managed compared to male players, the facilities, the professionalism around the sport, the quality of the staff that they have available.”
I ask whether research into injuries in the women’s game has received as much attention as men’s.
“Attention? No. But generally that’s across all research in football and in sports medicine. The male has been the norm,” she adds.
Research will end up benefiting the men’s game too
Take one issue from the realm of ‘nurture’ that Kat is studying: football boots. The male foot was the norm. It’s only in recent years that boots designed specifically for women have become available. And even then we don’t understand the differences properly, which is why Kat has done 3D scans of hundreds of feet, to map them.
That research will end up benefiting the men’s game too because Kat is also charting the differences between ethnicities. Because the default foot isn’t just a man’s, it’s a white man’s.
The male is also the norm when it comes to other environmental factors, like booking a pitch.
On a Thursday evening in Kent, the Gravesham Girls and Women’s Football Club, founded in 1999, is training ahead of the start of the season. About 20 players, kitted out in yellow, are doing shooting drills and balls are flying. A Sky News camera operator cops one in the belly but bravely continues.
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Toni Allen and Keylie Oliver have both ruptured their ACL in the past. “I just screamed – everyone thought it was a fox,” Allen says. Both were out for a year.
“It’s quite daunting, and especially when you realise it’s not just football that it can impact, Oliver says.
“We have lives outside of football and it impacts that as well… At grass roots, the ladies always have a two o’clock kick-off. And that is because in our world, men’s football takes priority over women. We always have to play after – so the pitch is always ruined.”
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11:52
Women’s football: The ACL epidemic
The importance of the factors can change
Another difficulty is not just that there are lots of factors involved, it’s that the importance of the factors can change.
Professor Kirsty Elliott-Sale is professor of female Endocrinology and Exercise Physiology at the Manchester Met Institute of Sport.
She works closely with clubs, including Arsenal, to study how the menstrual cycle, or taking the Pill, can influence injuries. Research seems to suggest that some hormones can make ligaments looser, increasing the risk of rupture.
So over the course of the season Prof Elliott-Sale measures the laxity of players’ knees, charting that against their hormones, and cross referencing it with other factors like match congestion.
“It’s definitely a jigsaw,” she says. “And it’s about sort of putting all the pieces together.
“But once we have all the pieces, we don’t necessarily know which factor is going to play a bigger role on any given day. So it’s not like all of the pieces are the same size. Some days, a particular factor that might influence this type of injury might be amplified, whereas on another day, it might be turned down.”
Biology remains a large part of the answer
But even then the difference between female and male body types – which in the past led to some dismissing women as too “fragile” to play traditionally male sports – may not be as much of a factor as previously thought.
Because in some sports, the ACL injury discrepancy disappears.
“If you compare sports, where males and females start at the same age, have the same training intensity throughout their sporting life, and perform the same movements during that sport, then actually, the rupture rates equalise,” Mr Jones, the surgeon, says.
“And a very good example for that is elite dancers. So elite dance athletes, where the males and females start their training at the same age, they perform the same pivoting, jumping, twisting movements, and they have the same intensity of training and the same conditions. If you compare their rupture rates, they’re actually equalised.”
“And what that suggests is the impact of your training and your conditioning is really essential and avoiding this injury.”
Every expert I spoke to stressed the role of strength and conditioning in preventing injury. Here, nurture influences nature.
“We have that attitude of, you know, women do yoga, and pilates and men lift heavy things in the gym,” Ms Kryger says.
“But the reality is everyone needs to lift heavy things occasionally to prevent injuries and have a healthy body.”
Image: England’s Beth Mead has also been ruled out due to injuries. Pic: AP
The good news is that quantifiable progress is being made here.
Matt Whalan is a sports scientist who works with the Australian men’s and women’s football teams – the Matildas who will be competing in the World Cup. He spoke to me from the men’s under 23s camp there.
Football Australia introduced a programme called ‘Perform+’, which can be worked into warm ups, that has reduced injuries, including ACLs, by 40%.
And crucially, it’s not just for elite players.
“This is designed so that mom and dad coaches can just go online, take down the programme, all the videos are there, there’s information about how you can deliver it with your athletes, and from under-sevens through to 55-year-olds, 95-year-olds, if you want to, you can do these exercises,” Mr Whalan says.
“The benefit of that for us at the higher end level, working with national teams, is if we have players that have been doing that, since they’re 12,13,14 years old, it makes our lives a lot easier.”
That remains in the future. When the World Cup starts next week, it will do so without a host of stars.
As England forward Chloe Kelly tells Sky News: “Having suffered the ACL injury myself, it’s so sad when you see so many players suffering that injury. Hopefully, we get the research that we need to stop these injuries happening so often.”
It has become almost impossible to book a driving test on the government website due to bots on the booking system, driving instructors have told Sky News.
The only official way to book a practical car driving test is through the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) website.
New test slots are released by the DVSA at 6am every Monday, but “no matter how fast I am, there’s nothing available”, said Aman Sanghera, a driving instructor based in west London.
Image: Driving instructor Aman Sanghera wants ‘stronger oversight and regulation’ from the DVSA
When asked about the cause, she said: “All of the tests are taken by bots, they are definitely taking over the booking system.”
In this context, bots are automated software designed to mimic human behaviour and programmed to carry out actions like searching for and reserving driving test appointments on the official government website much faster than humans can.
Individuals and companies use bots to block-book driving test slots and then resell them at a profit, which is not illegal, although it is a violation of the DVSA’s terms of use.
Recent data shows the DVSA has closed over 800 business accounts for misuse of its booking service in the past two years.
Image: It takes five months on average for a test in England – unless you pay a middleman
Ms Sanghera, who has been in the trade for over a decade, said the usage of bots started a few months ago “but is now getting out of hand”.
She said: “I’ve actually heard about driving instructors being approached by certain individuals to then take on their IDs to log in and to run this scam.
“I struggle to actually book a test for my students, which means that by the time my students are logging in, they’ve got no chance.”
Driving instructors can book driving tests on behalf of their pupils using a dedicated service, allowing them to bypass the general queue and potentially secure test slots more efficiently.
As a result, Ms Sanghera said students are “forced to go to third-party sites” to secure “the same test dates which are then available later on during the day at a premium rate of like £200-£300”.
She added: “Given that the DVSA is a government-regulated body, one would expect a more robust and fair system to ensure affordability and accessibility for all candidates.”
Image: The long waiting lists and high demand for tests has led some to take advantage
The standard test fee is £62, offered by the DVSA, which is responsible for carrying out driving tests in Great Britain.
The biggest concern for the driving instructors Sky News has spoken to, including Ms Sanghera, is “the fact that students are being exploited”.
When Ahmed Ali struggled to find a practical test on the DVSA website, he turned to third-party sites – a decision he now regrets.
Image: Ahmed Ali started looking for a test two years ago
He said: “I’ve spent about £650 on driving tests, and I’ve sat zero tests. I’ve given all this money to third-parties that look for cancellations so they could try to get you a faster test.”
But the 20-year-old said that despite making the payments, he “didn’t hear back from them again”, which is illegal.
“When you lose all that money, you get to a point where you can’t really afford to find another driving test,” he said.
“I just feel very frustrated because I’ve spent all this money, all this time into driving, and I haven’t sat a single driving test.”
The DVSA urged applicants to only book tests via the official Gov.uk website and told Sky News it “deploys enhanced bot protection to help stop automated systems from buying up tests unfairly”.
“These applications, however, are constantly evolving and changing, and DVSA’s work on this is ongoing,” it said.
From Tuesday, the DVSA will require learner drivers to provide 10 full working days’ notice to change or cancel their car driving test without losing the test fee, up from the current three days.
Also part of the DVSA’s crackdown to reduce waiting times is a consultation expected to launch in spring 2025 “to streamline the driving test booking process” and “tighten terms and conditions”.
Russell Brand has been charged with rape and two counts of sexual assault between 1999 and 2005.
The Metropolitan Police say the 50-year-old comedian, actor and author has also been charged with one count of oral rape and one count of indecent assault.
The charges relate to four women.
He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday 2 May.
Police have said Brand is accused of raping a woman in the Bournemouth area in 1999 and indecently assaulting a woman in the Westminster area of London in 2001.
He is also accused of orally raping and sexually assaulting a woman in Westminster in 2004.
The fourth charge alleges that a woman was sexually assaulted in Westminster between 2004 and 2005.
Police began investigating Brand, from Oxfordshire, in September 2023 after receiving a number of allegations.
The comedian has previously denied the accusations, and said all his sexual relationships were “absolutely always consensual”.
Met Police Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, who is leading the investigation, said: “The women who have made reports continue to receive support from specially trained officers.
“The Met’s investigation remains open and detectives ask anyone who has been affected by this case, or anyone who has any information, to come forward and speak with police.”
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
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The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
Image: These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”