Running her fingers over her scan for the first time, Karen Trippass could feel straight away that her unborn baby had her husband’s nose.
Born with bilateral coloboma, a rare condition also known as cat-eye syndrome, she never thought she would experience this pregnancy milestone in the same way that sighted expectant mums do, the excitement of seeing the shifting black and white shapes of a growing embryo appearing on screen for the first time.
It was something she missed out on while pregnant with her eldest daughter, Phoebe, 10 years ago. Questioned by medical staff and social workers on her ability to care for a newborn at that time, Karen says being visually impaired meant she was treated differently and she suffered from depression, finding it difficult to bond with her baby before her birth.
Image: Karen’s raised baby scan helped her ‘see’ her unborn daughter while she was pregnant. Pic: World Unseen
This time round, she was able to “meet” her baby through her 29-week ultrasound thanks to technology that creates a raised image, providing a tactile feel of her child wriggling in her womb. She says having this, and also being able to hear the heartbeat, helped her feel more connected.
Karen’s second daughter, Ruby, is now eight weeks old, and her scan hangs up at their home in Surrey.
“The first thing I remember noticing was her nose,” she says. “She’s got my husband’s nose. I could feel the top of her head, her nose, the dip of her eyes… I’ll always treasure it.
Image: Pic: World Unseen
“Both my babies are IVF, it took us a long time to get there. So the whole thing’s emotional anyway, but then getting to see your baby like everybody else does… I just hope that every visually impaired woman who has a baby could get that opportunity.
“I don’t expect the NHS to be rolling it out, but even if you had to pay a minimal charge, I think a lot of people would prefer it. I just think it’s amazing, the concept of having family pictures from now on would be pretty cool.”
According to the NHS, there are more than two million people living with sight loss in the UK, with around 340,000 registered as blind or partially sighted.
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Karen’s scan of Ruby was created by camera firm Canon, and is being featured as part of its new World Unseen exhibition, launched in partnership with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) – “the photography exhibition you don’t need to see”.
Image: The World Unseen exhibition features photos paired with braille, elevated images and audio descriptions. Pic: World Unseen/Canon
Designed completely with the experience of blind and partially sighted people in mind, the exhibition features a series of pictures taken by world-renowned photographers, some who are visually impaired, accompanied with elevated prints, audio descriptions, soundscapes and braille.
For sighted people, traditional images are obscured in different ways to convey different types of visual impairment, from glaucoma to diabetic retinopathy. It is an insight into the difficulties faced by blind and partially sighted people, a challenge to see life through their lens, and a reminder of the vision those of us with sight rely on and take for granted every day.
At the launch event, even the canapes play with your senses – we are encouraged to put on headphones playing sounds of the sea, a scent spray filling the air with salt and vinegar, as fish and chip nibbles are presented.
Image: Pic: World Unseen/Canon
Among the photographers whose work is featured is Ian Treherne, from Essex, who is known as the Blind Photographer. Born with the condition RP Type 2 Usher Syndrome, he has been deaf since birth and over the years has lost almost 95% of his sight.
“I hid my blindness for years,” he says. “I acted as a sighted person for a very long time. When I was growing up, disability was a very, awkward, difficult topic. Only my close friends knew about it. Then in my 30s, I sort of ‘came out’ as a blind person and it’s done me the world of good to be open and honest about it. And I think by doing photography and working alongside other people with disabilities, you can really improve the bigger picture among the general public.”
Image: Pic: World Unseen/Canon
Ian says he has always been creative and photography allowed him to capture moments in time as he was losing his sight. But there was also a rebelliousness behind his desire to get behind the camera.
“I knew that doing photography and being blind was going to hurt some minds, hurt some brains,” he says. “I knew it would raise some questions.”
So he taught himself, practising with his camera and researching on the internet. “With the condition I’ve got, I have to work probably 10, 20 times harder than a fully sighted person,” he says.
“It’s all a learning curve. I think that’s really the biggest boundary in society, it’s changing the mindsets, or adjusting the mindsets. I think people are sometimes just afraid to ask the question.”
Image: These images of Lioness Chloe Kelly’s Euro 2022 final goal are obscured to show how a person with a visual impairment might see them. Pic: World Unseen/Canon
The World Unseen exhibition feature works from world-renowned photographers and Canon ambassadors from around the globe, including Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado, Nigerian photojournalist Yagazie Emezi, sports photographer Samo Vidic, fashion photographer Heidi Rondak, and Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Muhammed Muheisen.
A photograph from Kenya of the last male northern white rhino, taken by award-winning South African photojournalist Brent Stirton, also features. You can feel the roughness, every groove of the animal’s skin, as you run your fingers over the elevated image.
Photographs of Lioness Chloe Kelly’s decisive goal in the Euro 2022 final at Wembley, by Marc Aspland, are also on display, with an audio description reliving the moment of the win.
But Ruby, of course, is the star of the show, cradled by her mum in front of her scan. “It’s funny to think of people feeling Ruby’s picture but I love the idea that quite a lot of visually impaired people will feel what a scan picture is like, because I didn’t know what to expect,” Karen says.
“To have this memory, this opportunity to ‘see’ – I say see, or feel – my baby before she was born was awesome. And to have a record of it and get to show Ruby when she’s older, it’s so special.”
The World Unseen exhibition has opened at Somerset House, in central London, and runs over the weekend
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Image: Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Image: Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
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Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.
An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.
An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.
Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.
A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.
Image: Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames
Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.
He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.
He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”
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“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”
On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.
When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.
Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.
Major developers will only deal with one regulator under planning reforms which ministers say will “rewire the system” to get Britain building – all while protecting the environment.
A review by former Labour adviser Dan Corry into Britain’s sluggish system of green regulation has concluded that existing environmental regulators should remain in place, while rejecting a “bonfire of regulations”.
But Mr Corry suggested there might be circumstances in which the government look at changing the wildlife and habit rules inherited from the EU, which protect individual species.
The government has now explicitly ruled out any such change in this parliament.
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Campaigners have questioned whether the changes go far enough and will make a major difference to the rate and scale of building in the UK.
Speaking to Sky News, Environment Secretary Steve Reed insisted that accepting nine of the recommendations from the Corry review would amount to wholesale reform.
The minister said: “We can get a win-win for economic growth and for nature. And that is why we are moving ahead with proposals such as appointing a lead regulator for major developments so that the developers don’t have to navigate the architecture of multiple regulators.
“They just work for a single regulator who manages all the others on their behalf. Simplifying the online planning portal.
“These are huge changes that will save developers billions of pounds and speed up decisions doing damage to the environment.”
Mr Reed insisted that there would be “no more bat tunnels” built, even though the Corry review suggests that more work needs to be done to look again at the relevant guidance.
It says: “Rapidly reviewing the existing catalogue of compliance guidance, including on protecting bats, will identify opportunities to remove duplication, ambiguity or inconsistency.
“Natural England has already agreed to review and update their advice to Local Planning Authorities on bats to ensure there is clear, proportionate and accessible advice available.”
The review will mean:
• Appointing one lead regulator for every major infrastructure project, like Heathrow expansion
• A review on how nature rules are implemented – but not the rules themselves
• Insisting regulators focus more on government priorities, particularly growth
Economist and former charity leader Mr Corry, who led the review, said it shows that “simply scrapping regulations isn’t the answer”.
“Instead we need modern, streamlined regulation that is easier for everyone to use. While short-term trade-offs may be needed, these reforms will ultimately deliver a win-win for both nature and economic growth in the longer run.”
However, Sam Richards from Britain Remade, a thinktank trying to get Britain growing, said that while the steps are welcome, the number of regulators that report to the environment department would remain the same before and after the review. He questioned whether this would have the impact ministers claimed.