‘My little angel’: Sister of final yacht victim Hannah Lynch speaks for first time since tragedy
The Lynch family have said they are “devastated” and “in shock” but are being “comforted and supported by family and friends” after the Bayesian superyacht tragedy.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, was confirmed dead by local authorities on Thursday after the yacht he was holidaying on sunk in the early hours of Monday.
Family release statement; superyacht sinking latest
Divers recovered the final missing body from the wreckage on Friday, which is believed to be that of his 18-year-old daughter Hannah. Her mother and Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares survived the disaster.
‘She is my little angel, my star’
Miss Lynch’s sister, Esme, said in a statement on Friday: “Hannah often burst into my bedroom and lay down with me.
“Sometimes beaming with a smile, sometimes cheeky, sometimes for advice.
“No matter what, she brought boundless love to me. She was endlessly caring, passionately mad, unintentionally hilarious and the most amazing, supportive and joyful sister and best friend to me.
“And on top of all this, she had even more love to give endlessly to all her friends and passion to give to her incredible studies and goals. She is my little angel, my star.”
Hannah and Mike Lynch
A spokesperson for the family said in a statement on Friday: “The Lynch family is devastated, in shock and is being comforted and supported by family and friends.
“Their thoughts are with everyone affected by the tragedy. They would like to sincerely thank the Italian coastguard, emergency services and all those who helped in the rescue. Their one request now is that their privacy be respected at this time of unspeakable grief.”
Tributes have since poured in for both members of the family.
‘Lit up the classroom’
Miss Lynch “lit up the classroom with her energy, passion for learning and sheer intelligence”, Jon Mitropoulos-Monk, head of English at Latymer Upper School in west London, said.
“I’ve never taught someone who combined sky-high intellectual ability with warmth and enthusiasm in the way Hannah did,” he said on Friday.
He added that when she was awarded her place to study at Oxford she sought out every member of staff to “thank them individually and give them a hug”.
Family friend Patrick Jacob said he has “never met anybody like Hannah”, describing her as “charming and ferociously intelligent with an insatiable thirst for life and knowledge”.
“We have lost one of our brightest stars whose future held so much promise. Her loss is unbearable,” he added.
Hannah Lynch
Miss Lynch’s school friend Katya Lacie said she had a “beautiful soul”.
“Being with Hannah made me feel whole and happy. She is the most special friend anyone could ask for and I will always love Hannah,” she said.
Andrew Kanter, a close friend and former colleague of her father, described Mr Lynch as “the most brilliant mind and caring person I have ever known”.
“There is simply no other UK technology entrepreneur of our generation who has had such an impact on so many people,” he said.
Sushovan Hussain, a school friend and former colleague of Mr Lynch, also knew Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloom, his wife Judy, and Mr Lynch’s lawyer Chris Morvillo, who also died when the yacht sunk.
He said Mr Lynch’s death “leaves an unfillable hole in my life”, adding it is “tragic beyond words”.
‘A heart as big as his brain’
Family friend Albert Read said he “never met anyone like Mike”.
Mr Read described him as “a searing intellect, a steel that would transform the world around him, an instinct for family and friends – organising children’s treasure hunts, big gatherings of neighbours in Suffolk – and, with Angela, a determination to light up the worlds of art and science for his two beloved daughters.
“Warm, funny, brilliant, loyal and exceptionally brave, with a heart as big as his brain.”
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Mike Lynch’s neighbour: ‘Words fail me’
‘Fantastic neighbour’
Ruth Leigh lived next door to Mr Lynch in Suffolk for 15 years.
On Thursday, she described them as “fantastic neighbours” and said the tech tycoon “never played on his position” and was “very friendly and down-to-earth” despite his fortune.
“Even though they were wealthy and influential people there was never any airs and graces,” Ms Leigh told Sky News.
“He always went to the trouble of remembering your name, of asking after your partner or your children. From the very start they were fantastic neighbours – very friendly and down-to-earth.
“He’d come from a very ordinary background and through his own brains and intellect, he’d made a really great company and come up with some incredible ground-breaking tech. He was always very moral. He gave to charity very generously and never played on his position.”
She described his death so soon after the end of his legal troubles as “the saddest thing I’ve ever heard”.
“The whole point about this trip to Italy was taking his friends and family to say thank you. That’s what makes it even more tragic,” she added.
“Losing somebody so kind, compassionate, and full of integrity must leave a hole that cannot be filled.”
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Who is Mike Lynch?
Read more
Who were the people on the yacht?
What we know about the sinking so far
Doctor reveals how British mother and baby survived
Mr Lynch was extradited to the US and spent a year under house arrest in San Francisco before he was cleared of 15 charges of fraud earlier this summer by a jury.
Prosecutors claimed he deliberately overstated the value of Autonomy, the company he founded in 1996, when he sold it to Hewlett Packard in 2011. He always denied wrongdoing.
‘Brain the size of a planet’
His former colleague told Sky News on Thursday he had a “brain the size of a planet” and was a “lovely man”.
David Tabizel co-founded Autonomy with Mr Lynch and the pair remained good friends. He described him as a “remarkable individual” and the “brightest man I’ve met in my life”.
“He had a remarkable set of personality traits that we rarely see in Britain,” he said.
“Before him there was no British tech scene. He showed us we can be world-class.”
Mr Tabizel told of Mr Lynch’s “inner child”, that he “loved video games”, had a life-size train set in his garden, and how they animated a cartoon dog for their office, for which they both recorded the “barking noises”.
Commenting on his legal struggles, Mr Tabizel said he “never heard him lie or exaggerate” and he was “interested in the truth… in cutting through the noise”.
“For him to be accused of manipulating his profits. It was an extraordinary thing. It just wasn’t Mike. I loved that man and he should be celebrated as a hero.”
David Yelland, Mr Lynch’s former PR adviser and former editor of The Sun newspaper, paid tribute to him in a post on X.
He said: “All those that knew and loved Mike are thinking of Angela and their surviving daughter Esme as they struggle to come to terms with such unimaginable loss.
“We have lost a man who was failed in life by his country and his peers when he needed them most – as he looked for help in the unjust US demand that he be extradited – and he has then suffered the most unfair and brutal of fates.”
Mr Yelland said he had spoken to Mr Lynch just before he set sail on the yacht.
He also described him as a “dreamer of dreams not just for himself but for all those that knew him, worked with him or invested with him”.
The entrepreneur had “exciting plans to contribute much more to the country he loved,” he added.
Bayesian superyacht. Pic: Danny Wheelz
Lord Browne, former chief executive of BP and now chairman of BeyondNetZero, said Mr Lynch was “the person who catalysed a breed of deep tech entrepreneurs in the UK”.
“His ideas and his personal vision were a powerful contribution to science and technology in both Britain and globally. We have lost a human being of great ability,” he wrote.
Pictured in 2010. Pic: Shutterstock
‘Privileged to have known him’
Sky’s Ian King said he “feels very privileged to have known and spoken with Mike Lynch over many years”.
He described him as a “visionary and original thinker with a passion for building businesses”. “There are sadly too few like him in the UK,” he added.
Read more:
Ian King: Why the odds were stacked against Lynch
The Royal Academy of Engineering, where Mr Lynch was a former council member, donor, and mentor, said it is “deeply saddened to learn of the death of Mike Lynch”.
Sending condolences to his family, they added: “Mike became a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008 and we have fond memories of the active role he played in the past as a mentor, donor, and former council member. He was also one of the inaugural members on the enterprise committee.”
A spokesperson for technology industry group TechUK said: “Mike Lynch was a hugely significant and pioneering figure in the UK technology sector.
“Our hearts go out to all of the families and friends who have been impacted by these tragic events,” they said.
Jonathan Bloomer of Morgan Stanley. Pic: Hiscox/ Linkedin
US lawyer Chris Morvillo. Pic: Clifford Chance
Mr Lynch’s Autonomy software was based on Bayesian statistical inference – where his family’s ill-fated yacht got its name.
The software’s global success earned him a reputation as the “British Bill Gates” and enabled companies to trawl through huge swathes of data more efficiently.
His Cambridge thesis is thought to be one of the most-read pieces of research in the institution’s library.
There was huge outcry from politicians and business leaders when Home Secretary Priti Patel approved a judge’s extradition order for him to be sent to the US for trial in 2023.
World
‘It is truly monstrous’: Inside the besieged Sudanese city where families are forced to eat animal feed to live
Al Fashir is being suffocated to death.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has held the capital of North Darfur hostage in a 14-month siege – blocking food or fuel from entering the locality and forcing starvation on its 900,000 inhabitants.
The entire city is currently a militarised zone as Sudan‘s army and the Darfur Joint Protection Force fend off the RSF from capturing the last state capital in the Darfur region not currently under their control.
Rare footage sent to Sky News from inside al Fashir town shows streets emptied of cars and people.
The city’s remaining residents are hiding from daytime shelling inside their homes, and volunteers move through town on donkey carts distributing the little food they can find.
Al Fashir is the capital of North Darfur
‘It is truly monstrous’
Journalist Muammer Ibrahim sent Sky News voice notes from there.
“The situation is monstrous,” he says. “It is truly monstrous.
“The markets are emptied of food and partially destroyed by shelling. Civilians were killed at the market, just a day ago. People have fled market areas but there is also shelling in residential areas. Every day, you hear of 10 or 12 civilians killed in attacks.”
His voice sounds shallow, weakened by the dire conditions, and gunshots can be heard in the background.
“The intense fighting has meant that people cannot safely search for anything to eat, but there is also nothing for their money to buy. The markets are depleted. Hundreds of thousands here are threatened by a full-blown famine,” he says.
“There has been a full blockade of any nutritional supplies arriving in al Fashir since the collapse of Zamzam camp. It closed any routes for produce or supplies to enter.”
The city’s remaining residents hide from daytime shelling
The RSF ransacked the famine-ridden Zamzam displacement camp 7.5 miles (12km) south of al Fashir town in April, after the military reclaimed Sudan’s capital Khartoum.
The United Nations believes that at least 100 people were killed in the attacks, including children and aid workers.
The majority of Zamzam’s half a million residents fled to other areas for safety. Hundreds of thousands of them are now squeezed into tents on the edges of al Fashir, completely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
The capture of the camp allowed the RSF to tighten their siege and block off the last remaining supply route. Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year.
Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year
“Already, between June and October 2024, we had several trucks stuck and prevented by the Rapid Support Forces from going to their destination which was al Fashir and Zamzam,” says Mathilde Simon, project coordinator at Medicins Sans Frontieres.
“They were prevented from doing so because they were taking food to those destinations.”
“There was another UN convoy that tried to reach al Fashir in the beginning of June. It could not, and five aid workers were killed.
“Since then, no convoy has been able to reach al Fashir. There have been ongoing negotiations to bring in food but they have not been successful until now.”
Mathilde Simon says malnutrition rates in al Fashir are ‘catastrophic’
Families are resorting to eating animal feed to survive.
Videos sent to Sky News by volunteers show extreme suffering and deprivation, with sickly children sitting on thin straw mats on the hard ground.
Community kitchens are their only source of survival, only able to offer small meals of sorghum porridge to hundreds of thousands of elderly men, women and children facing starvation.
The question now is whether famine has fully taken root in al Fashir after the collapse of Zamzam camp and intensified RSF siege.
‘Malnutrition rates are catastrophic’
“The lack of access has prevented us from carrying out further assessment that can help us have a better understanding of the situation, but already in December 2024 famine was confirmed by the IPC Famine Review Committee in five areas,” says Mathilde.
“It was already confirmed in August 2024 in Zamzam but had spread to other displacement camps including Abu Shouk and it was already projected in al Fashir.
“This was more than eight months ago and we know the situation has completely worsened and malnutrition rates are absolutely catastrophic.”
Fatma Yaqoub said her family have nothing to eat but animal feed
Treasurer of al Fashir’s Emergency Response Rooms, Mohamed al Doma, believes all signs point to a famine.
He had to walk for four hours to escape the city with his wife and two young children after living through a full year of the siege and offering support to residents as supplies and funding dwindled.
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“There is a famine of the first degree in al Fashir. All the basic necessities for life are not available,” he says.
“There is a lack of sustenance, a lack of nutrition and a lack of shelter. The fundamental conditions for human living are not living. There is nothing available in the markets – no food or work. There is no farming for subsistence. There is no aid entering al Fashir.”
“All of this points towards a full-blown famine.”
Hamas has said it is ready to cooperate with a request to deliver food to Israeli hostages in Gaza, if Israel agrees to permanently open a humanitarian corridor into the enclave.
The militant group’s statement comes amid international outcry over two videos it released of Israeli hostage Evyatar David, who it has held captive since 7 October 2023.
The now 24-year-old looks skeletal, with his shoulder blades protruding from his back.
The footage sparked huge criticism, with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas labelling the videos “appalling” and saying they “expose the barbarity of Hamas”.
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Video released of Israeli hostage
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he had asked the Red Cross to give humanitarian assistance to the hostages.
Hamas’s military spokesperson Abu Obeidah said it is “ready to engage positively and respond to any request from the Red Cross to bring food and medicine to enemy captives” if certain conditions are met.
These are that Israel must permanently open a humanitarian corridor and halt airstrikes during the distribution of aid, he said.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday that six more people had died of starvation or malnutrition in the enclave in the past 24 hours.
This raises the number of those who have died from what multiple international agencies warn may be an unfolding famine to 175 since the war began, the ministry said. This includes 93 children, it added.
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Baby Zainab starved to death in Gaza
No aid entered Gaza between 2 March and 19 May due an Israeli blockade and deliveries of supplies including food, medicine and fuel have been limited since then.
Israeli authorities have previously said there is “no famine caused by Israel” – and that its military is “working to facilitate and ease the distribution of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip”.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health authorities also said at least 80 people in Gaza were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Sunday.
These included people trying to reach aid distribution, Palestinian medics said.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has repeatedly said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians” and has previously blamed Hamas militants for fomenting chaos and endangering civilians.
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Hamas killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in its attack on 7 October 2023 and abducted 251 others. Of those, they still hold around 50, with 20 believed to be alive, after most of the others were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.
We’ve seen this many times before.
Highly anticipated talks and meetings with America, Israel’s closest ally and the one country with the power to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change course, then nothing changes.
We need to give Steve Witkoff time to report his assessments back to the White House before we can give a complete verdict on this visit but what we’ve seen and heard so far has offered little hope.
The pressure on Donald Trump to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is mounting after a small but vocal contingent of his base expressed outrage.
Even one of his biggest supporters in Congress, Marjorie Taylor Green, has referred to it as a genocide.
It was little coincidence Mr Witkoff was dispatched to the region for the first time in three months to speak to people on both sides and “learn the truth” to quote US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who accompanied him to an aid site in Gaza.
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Gaza nurse: ‘We’re rationing care’
The pair spent five hours in Gaza speaking to people at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation centre and it’s understood saw nothing of the large crowd of Palestinians gathering a mile away waiting for food.
Their sanitised tour of Gaza did not include a visit to a hospital where medics are receiving casualties by the dozen from deadly incidents at aid sites, and where they’re treating children for malnutrition and hunger.
A critical trauma nurse at Nasser hospital told us a 13-year-old boy was among the people shot while Mr Witkoff was in the enclave.
An American paediatrician at the same hospital who had publicly extended an invitation to meet with Mr Witkoff heard nothing from the US delegation.
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‘Come here, right now’: Gaza doctor’s message to US envoy
Dr Tom Adamkiewicz described people “being shot like rabbits” and “a new level of barbarity that I don’t think the world has seen”.
The US delegation was defensive of the controversial GHF aid distribution that was launched by America and Israel in May, hailing its delivery of a million meals a day.
But if their new system of feeding Gaza is truly working, why are we seeing images of starved children and hearing deaths every day of people in search of food?
The backdrop of this trip is very different to the last time Mr Witkoff was here.
In May, life was a struggle for Palestinians in Gaza, people were dying in Israeli bombings but, for the most part, people weren’t dying due to a lack of food or getting killed trying to reach aid.
Mr Netanyahu’s easing of humanitarian conditions a week ago, allowing foreign aid to drop from the sky, was an indirect admission of failure by the GHF.
Yet, for now, the US is standing by this highly criticised way of delivering aid.
A UN source tells me more aid is getting through than it was a week ago – around 30 lorries are due to enter today compared to around five that were getting in each day before.
Still nowhere near enough and it’s a complex process of clearances and coordination with the IDF through areas of conflict.
Lorries are regularly refused entry without explanation.
Then there was Mr Witkoff’s meeting with hostage families a day later where we began to get a sense of America’s new plan for Gaza.
The US issued no public statement but family members shared conversations they’d had with Mr Trump’s envoy: bring all the hostages home in one deal, disarm Hamas and end the war. Easier to propose than to put into practice.
Within hours of those comments being reported in the Israeli media, Hamas released a video of hostage Evyatar David looking emaciated in an underground tunnel in Gaza.
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Video released of Israeli hostage
Now 24 years old, he was kidnapped from the Nova festival on 7 October and is one of 20 hostages understood to be still alive. The release of the video was timed for maximum impact.
Hamas also poured water on any hopes of a deal in a statement, refusing to disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established.
Hamas has perhaps become more emboldened in this demand after key Israeli allies, including the UK, announced plans for formal recognition in the last week.
It’s hard to see a way forward. The current Israeli government has, in effect, abandoned the idea of a two-state solution.
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The Trump administration’s recent boycott of international conferences on the matter suggests America is taking a similar line, breaking with its long-standing position.
Arab nations could now be key in what happens next.
In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt joined a resolution calling for Hamas to disarm and surrender control of Gaza following a UN conference earlier this week.
This is hugely significant – highly influential powers in its own backyard have not applied this sort of pressure before.
For all the US delegation’s good intentions, it’s still political deadlock. Israeli hostages and Palestinians in Gaza left to starve and suffer the consequences.
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