Pregnant teenager Bella Culley, who admitted drug trafficking charges in Georgia, has arrived home after being freed from prison.

The 19-year-old from Billingham, Teesside, had initially faced a possible 20 years in jail, but prosecutors made a last-minute change to the terms of a plea bargain.

Now eight months pregnant, she had spent five months and 24 days in custody at Georgia's Rustavi Prison Number Five.

She walked free from court in Tbilisi arm-in-arm with her mother on Monday and arrived on an Easyjet flight at Luton Airport just before 19:00 GMT.

The teenager was detained on 10 May having being arrested at Tbilisi International Airport when 12kg (26lb) of marijuana and 2kg (4.4lb) of hashish were found in her luggage.

Her family had recently paid £137,000 to reduce her sentence to two years.

On Monday her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia said that prosecutors made the changes to the plea deal and, given her age and pregnancy, decided to free her.

Miss Culley had previously pleaded guilty to bringing drugs into Georgia, flying from Thailand via Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

She said she was forced to do so by gangsters who tortured her with a hot iron.

She had initially gone missing while travelling in Thailand and her lawyer said Georgian police had launched a separate criminal investigation into her coercion allegations.

Miss Culley had been held in pre-trial detention since May, first in stark conditions in Georgia's Rustavi Prison Number Five before being transferred to a "mother and baby" unit.

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Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, had a glittering - if controversial - career in American public life.

He served as President Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff in the 1970s, before spending a decade in the House of Representatives.

President George H. W. Bush made him defence secretary during the first Gulf War and the US invasion of Panama.

In 2001, Cheney became one of the most powerful vice presidents in history.

He was a key architect of President George W. Bush's 'War on Terror' after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and an early advocate of the invasion of Iraq.

But, in his final years, he became a bitter critic of the Republican party under the leadership of President Donald Trump.

"In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic," Cheney said.

Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on 30 January 1941.

His father worked for the US Department of Agriculture, while his mother had been a successful softball player in the 1930s.

When he was 13, his family moved to Casper, an oil town in Wyoming. In 1959, Cheney entered Yale on a scholarship, but failed to graduate.

He confessed that he fell in with “some kindred souls, young men like me who were not adjusting very well [to Yale] and shared my opinion that beer was one of the essentials of life.”

He went on to gain a Master's degree in political science from the University of Wyoming but - like his future boss, George W. Bush, he continued to party.

In his early 20s, Cheney was twice convicted of drink driving. The incidents focused his mind on the future.

"I was headed down a bad road if I continued on that course," he said.

In 1959, when he became eligible to be drafted for military service, Cheney made the most of every legal avenue to avoid putting on a uniform.

He obtained a string of deferments, first so that he could finish his college course and then when his new wife, Lynne became pregnant.

"I don't regret the decisions I made," he said later. "I complied fully with all the requirements of the statutes, registered with the draft when I turned 18. Had I been drafted, I would have been happy to serve."

Surprisingly this did not become a major campaign issue when he was running for the Vice-Presidency, even after Cheney questioned the ability of the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry - himself a Vietnam veteran - to serve as commander in chief.

Dick Cheney's first taste of Washington came in 1968 when he worked for William Steiger, a young republican representative from Wisconsin.

Legend has it that he caught the eye of Donald Rumsfeld, former defence secretary, then about to take over at the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) under President Richard Nixon.

Rumsfeld mentored Cheney, first in the OEO, and then in the Ford White House.

When Gerald Ford made Rumsfeld his defence secretary in 1975, Cheney found himself chief of staff at the White House. He was just 34 years old.

Eschewing the standard limousine for his battered VW Beetle, Dick Cheney proved a popular and approachable master of ceremonies.

"He made the system run," said Brent Scowcroft, Ford's national security adviser. "Everybody had access to the president, but it was smooth, orderly. He didn't try to be a deputy president."

When Ford lost the presidency in 1976, Cheney returned to Wyoming and stood for its House of Representatives seat.

But, weeks into the campaign and smoking three packets of cigarettes a day, he had the first of his many heart attacks.

While he was recuperating, Lynne continued to campaign on his behalf - and Cheney was returned with an impressive 59% of the vote.

During his decade in the House, he gained himself the reputation as a drier-than-dry conservative, enthusiastically supporting Ronald Reagan's huge Cold War increases in defence spending.

More controversially, he opposed the release of Nelson Mandela from jail and was one of only 21 congressmen to vote against the prohibition of armour-piercing "cop killer" bullets.

Early in 1989, he was given the chance of higher office when President George H. W. Bush's nominee for defence secretary, Senator John Tower, was forced to withdraw amid allegations of heavy drinking and womanising.

Bush needed a congressman with a good reputation to take over at the Pentagon. He chose Dick Cheney and the Senate approved the choice without opposition.

Cheney's years at defence were some of the most momentous since the end of World War Two. The Berlin Wall and the Soviet empire collapsed and the United States was left to rethink its whole doctrine.

Although hawkish by nature, he oversaw a huge post-Cold War reduction in the military budget - where the number of servicemen and women fell from 2.2 million to 1.8 million.

Most of all, though, his time at the Pentagon will be remembered for the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq.

He took the lead in advocating military force against Saddam Hussein, whose troops had invaded Kuwait.

He persuaded Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to allow the deployment of more than 400,000 United States troops on his territory in the lead-up to Operation Desert Storm.

Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh to plan the attack with his generals. After a five week air campaign, coalition forces began a ground war.

Within 100 hours, Iraq's army had been routed.

Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf received the ticker-tape parades. But Dick Cheney, as much as his soldiers, deserved credit for the success of Desert Storm.

Bill Clinton's presidential election victory in 1992 saw Cheney leave Washington once again.

This time he became CEO of Halliburton, a huge multinational company that is a leading supplier of equipment to the oil industry. There he remained, until summoned back to public life by George Bush Jnr.

Initially, he was asked to chair the search for someone to be vice president. But, having reviewed his recommendations, the young presidential candidate asked Dick Cheney if he would join him on the ticket.

After the attacks on 11 September 2001, Cheney was isolated from the president for a number of weeks - taken to an "undisclosed location" - in order to secure the succession if George W. Bush should be killed.

He was a leading advocate of US military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, and saw his defeat as the finishing of old business.

Cheney was a strong supporter of waterboarding captured terrorist suspects, declaring himself to be a "strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation techniques".

But it was his close links to, and long experience in Congress which made him a new type of vice-president. Cheney kept offices in the Capitol building as well as near the commander-in-chief, so as to be at the heart of the legislative process.

He played an influential role in keeping Bush's tax policies conservative, and rolling back environmental protections that were hampering American businesses.

Cheney had the ear of the president at all times and was never slow in using his privileged access to by-pass other senior members of the administration.

He did so to some effect in 2001, when he persuaded Bush to sign an order stripping captured foreign terrorist suspects of their legal rights.

This was to the anger of the Secretary of State, Colin Powell who first heard about the decision when it was broadcast on the news channel, CNN.

In October 2002, and later in July 2007, while President Bush was undergoing medical procedures, Cheney became acting president for a few hours under the terms of the 25th Amendment.

But his inability to shepherd legislation through Congress brought accusations that Mr Cheney was a liability.

And, even though George W Bush said that he would retain his running mate for 2004, there was pressure in Republican circles to dump him.

The president stood firm and Cheney played a central role in the decisive victory against John Kerry and his running mate John Edwards.

There was one exception to his conservatism which emerged during the campaign.

He opposed a constitutional ban on gay marriage - supported by President Bush - because his daughter Mary was a lesbian.

Cheney announced that - although the final decision should be left to individual states - he was personally in favour of marriage equality. "Freedom means freedom for everyone," he said.

His reputation became damaged when it emerged that Halliburton had won the contract to restore Iraq's oil industry, and that he was to receive $500,000 in deferred compensation from the company.

More controversy was to follow. In 2005, his former chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on charges relating to the leaking of a CIA agent's identity to the press.

And in 2006, after intense pressure from politicians and the media, Cheney was forced to take responsibility for accidentally shooting a hunting companion.

Harry Whittington, 78, was left with 30 pellets in his body, leading to a minor heart attack. Mr Cheney later called the incident "one of the worst days of my life".

The unfortunate episode became fodder for US late-night comedians and was seized upon by opponents as a damaging political metaphor - showing Cheney blasting away at the wrong target.

The vice president also grew worried that terrorists might try and assassinate him, by sending an electronic signal to his pacemaker - having seen a fictional version of this plot on the TV series, Homeland.

"I was aware of the danger that existed," he late wrote. "I knew from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible."

The pacemaker was taken out and replaced with one that had no connection to wifi.

After eight-years as vice-president, the man widely seen as the architect of President Bush's "war on terror" left office in January 2009.

He became a critic of the Obama administration's national security policies, opposing plans to close the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He lashed out at his vice presidential successor, Joe Biden, calling him "dead wrong" for saying another attack on the scale of 11 September 2001 was unlikely.

After a full heart transplant in 2012, he remained an active political figure. And, despite decades working for Republican presidents, he became a bitter opponent of President Donald Trump.

Having initially endorsed him in 2016, Cheney was appalled by allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election and Trump's seemingly casual attitude towards Nato.

He supported his older daughter, Liz, as she became a leading Republican 'never Trump' in the House of Representatives - and condemned the refusal to accept the result of the 2020 election.

Dick Cheney later published a statement that he would vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

It was an action that guaranteed that he will be remembered with mixed emotions on both sides of the political aisle.

For years, Cheney was a hero to the Republican right for his forthright manner and dry-as-dust ideological beliefs - and reviled by the left, who accused him of working for the interests of the oil industry.

But, he ended up supporting gay marriage and a Democratic party presidential candidate - while his frequent attacks on Donald Trump destroyed his relationship with his former party.

A transgender hospital worker felt a right to use a female-only facility at work as she had done for years without issues being raised, an employment tribunal heard.

Eight nurses are challenging County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust's policy of allowing a female-only changing room to be used by Rose Henderson, a biological male who identifies as a woman.

Rose, an operating department practitioner at Darlington Memorial Hospital who has been referred to by first name at the tribunal and uses female pronouns, also denied claims of giving "evil looks" at nurses who had signed a letter of objection to her use of and alleged conduct within the changing room.

The tribunal continues.

The hearing in Newcastle heard Rose had completed placements at the hospital since 2019 as part of studies at Teesside University, before beginning full time work there in 2022.

Since the first day, Rose had changed in the female-only room, used by about 300 women, the tribunal heard.

Niazi Fetto KC, barrister for the nurses, asked if Rose had ever considered, as other transgender colleagues had done in the past, asking for a separate place to get changed.

"No, I didn't see it as necessary," Rose replied, adding the use of the women's changing room was "never really brought up" by managers.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had ever considered if using the changing room could pose a "risk" that other users might be upset, embarrassed or frightened by Rose's presence there.

"It never occurred to me it could be a risk, no," Rose said.

The tribunal has heard complaints were first made by female nurses on the day surgery unit (DSU) in August or September 2023, with 26 women going on to sign a letter complaining about Rose's use of and conduct within the changing room in March 2024.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had continued using the changing room even after being aware of the "discontent", which Rose agreed with.

"To your mind you had a right to use the changing room?" Mr Fetto asked.

Rose replied: "Yes."

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had thought about the "perspective" of those complaining, to which Rose replied it was a source of "wonder" why there was "suddenly an issue" given she had been using the room for several years already.

"I considered their reasoning, but not to any great extent," Rose told the tribunal.

'Above bigotry'

Rose only became aware of the full details of the complaint when they were printed and broadcast in the media, the tribunal heard.

Mr Fetto asked if, after that, Rose had made a point of going to the DSU in "defiance" of the women and to appear "above bigotry and hatred" as Rose had written in a statement to the tribunal.

Rose said there were a "good number of reasons" professionally to go to the unit.

Several nurses alleged Rose gave them "evil looks" or "hard stares", which Rose denied, telling the tribunal she did not know who the nurses were.

"I'm not in the business of levelling evil looks at anyone or hard staring," Rose said, adding people could think whatever they wanted about her but that did not influence her view of colleagues "as professionals".

One of the lead nurses, Bethany Hutchison, said Rose had smirked at her as they passed in a corridor, which she took to be an attempt at intimidation.

Mr Fetto asked Rose if she had "displayed amusement" towards nurse Bethany Hutchison.

Rose said she was talking to another colleague at the time about something they found funny, "but it wasn't [Ms Hutchison's] presence which I found amusing".

The tribunal has heard a poster declaring the changing room to be "inclusive" was put up by some of Rose's colleagues after the row erupted.

Rose saw a post about it circulating on social media and immediately contacted managers to ask for the sign to be taken down, saying it was done with good intentions but was doing more harm than good.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose knew who put the poster up.

Rose did not know exactly but assumed it to have been done by supportive theatre colleagues, a "small subset" of whom had been frustrated at not being able to do anything to help.

The tribunal has heard allegations from the nurses about Rose's conduct in the changing room, with some claiming Rose would walk around in boxer shorts and stare at women getting changed.

Rose said the allegations were "false".

One of the nurses, Karen Danson, had told the tribunal Rose had once asked her three times if she was going to get changed, which had triggered flashbacks to sexual abuse Ms Danson suffered as a child.

Rose did not know who Ms Danson was and could not recall such an incident, the tribunal heard.

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The chancellor's pitch: the Budget will be painful, due to the actions of others, but it will be worth it, to tackle debt, help public services and promote growth.

How does that add up?

Rachel Reeves pinned the need for expected tax rises on the actions of previous governments – post-Brexit trading arrangements, austerity – as the underlying reasons for a disappointing assessment by the official forecasters of the economy's productivity.

That productivity has been held back by years of poor investment, and improvements have been slow. Lower productivity means weaker growth in the economy, hitting tax income and affecting assumptions about how much money the chancellor has to find to meet her financial rules.

Reeves also pointed to other external forces - tariffs and supply chain disruption – for the underwhelming performance of growth and inflation.

But some of these were foreseeable. Even if the official assessment is worse than thought, productivity - a measure of the output of the economy per hour worked - has long been problematic.

And when it comes to external factors, President Trump's trade hostilities, for example, are expected to have a very limited impact on growth.

Economists say the chancellor may need tax rises totalling some £30bn to meet her financial rules by a comfortable margin.

Reeves accused past Conservative governments of prioritising political convenience, but her fiscal position also reflects similar actions by her own government.

The public purse is having to find several billions of pounds to fund U-turns over welfare and Winter Fuel Payments.

Analysts, including those at the Bank of England, also point to the chancellor's own tax rises in last year's Budget as hindering growth and employment, and adding to inflation pressures this year.

It was always risky for Reeves to suggest she wouldn't be back for another hefty tax raid. She met her financial rules by only a slim margin last year. The gamble didn't pay off, but it can't just be blamed on ill winds from elsewhere.

It now appears that taxes are going to rise – and significantly. The chancellor argues money is needed to support the extra funding that has been put into public services, but the performance of these services depends on more than just cash.

Official figures indicate that in the year after Labour came to power, the public sector, and in particular healthcare, became less efficient as productivity dropped. There's more work to be done if we're to get bang for our buck.

For the actual detail on which taxes will rise, we'll have to wait until the Budget.

But by skirting around the issue of whether manifesto pledges will be adhered to, while claiming to have inherited a dire environment, the chancellor has stoked speculation that income tax rates may rise.

The pledges of not increasing the main rates of VAT, employee National Insurance Contributions and income tax always seemed risky to economists – the "big three" account for the majority of tax take. But they are also the most visible taxes for the public, and their inclusion in the manifesto made them appear taboo, glass only to be broken in cases of emergency.

A rise in, say, income tax rates may come to pass (perhaps accompanied with a cut in National Insurance to offset the impact on workers). But it may not.

The Budget is still being put together. The door to breaking manifesto pledges may have been deliberately nudged open so that if it doesn't come to pass, then an alternate package of tax rises, however large, would be greeted with relief.

There are a multitude of other options to consider– a levy on banks or the gambling industry, a further freezing of the thresholds at which different rates of taxes on incomes become applicable (so-called fiscal drag), a change in the liability of partnerships for National Insurance and even the tax treatment of pension levies have all been mooted.

And those tax rises will still be substantial, and felt primarily in the pockets of the better off.

Finding tax rises of the tune of £20-£30bn - sucking that amount out of the economy - is impossible without affecting incomes or profits, which risks damaging the outlook for growth.

However big the tax bill, this Budget may not deliver everything the chancellor wishes for.

Hamas has handed over to the Red Cross in northern Gaza a coffin containing what the Palestinian group says is the body of a deceased hostage, according to the Israeli military.

The remains will be transferred to Israeli forces, who will take them to the National Centre of Foreign Medicine in Tel Aviv for identification.

Earlier, Hamas's armed wing said it had recovered the body of an Israeli soldier in the eastern Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City.

Israel had allowed members of the group and Red Cross staff to search for the remains in the area, which is inside territory still controlled by Israeli forces.

The Israeli government has accused Hamas of deliberately delaying the recovery of the dead hostages since a ceasefire deal took effect more than three weeks ago.

Hamas has insisted it is difficult to locate the bodies under rubble.

Under the US-brokered ceasefire deal that took effect on 10 October, Hamas agreed to return the 20 living and 28 dead hostages it was still holding within 72 hours.

All the living Israeli hostages were released on 13 October in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

Israel has handed over the bodies of 270 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of the 18 Israeli hostages returned by Hamas before Tuesday, along with those of two foreign hostages - one of them Thai and the other Nepalese.

Six of the eight dead hostages still in Gaza before Tuesday were Israelis, one was Tanzanian, and one was Thai.

All but one of the dead hostages still in Gaza were among the 251 people abducted during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, during which about 1,200 other people were killed.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 68,800 people have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Earlier on Tuesday, a hospital official in Gaza City said a man was killed by Israeli fire in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said its troops killed a "terrorist" who had crossed the "Yellow Line", which demarcates Israeli-controlled territory, and posed a threat to them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has visited troops near the town of Pokrovsk, where the fiercest front line battle between Russia and Ukraine is currently taking place.

Zelensky posted photos showing him meeting personnel at a command post in the Dobropillya sector, some 20km (12 miles) north of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.

Kyiv's top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on Monday that Ukraine was increasing pressure on the Dobropillya front to "force the enemy to disperse its forces and make it impossible to concentrate their main efforts in the Pokrovsk area".

Russia has been trying to seize Pokrovsk - a strategic frontline town and logistic hub - for over a year.

Although it has taken them months to approach the town's borders, Russian soldiers have now infiltrated it and on Friday, Zelensky said Russia had amassed 170,000 troops on its outskirts.

Both Ukraine and Russia continue to issue claims and counter claims on the situation in and around Pokrovsk.

Capturing Pokrovsk could give Moscow access to the rest of Donetsk, including the towns Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, Kostyantynivka and Druzhkivka - the so-called "fortress belt".

Gen Syrskiy, acknowledged his troops were withstanding the "pressure of a multi-thousand enemy grouping" but denied they were encircled. Meanwhile, Russian military bloggers claimed 90% of Pokrovsk was under Moscow's control.

Unverified videos posted on social media show instances of close quarter combat, drone attacks and street battles there.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that Russian forces were operating with "increasing comfort" within the town, which once had a population of 60,000 but has now been almost entirely emptied of civilians and largely destroyed.

Further east, Moscow's troops are also reportedly targeting the town of Myrnohrad, which would put Ukrainian soldiers at risk of encirclement.

Intense drone activity has cut off many logistics routes, making evacuations and the supply of ammunition and vehicles near impossible.

On Monday, Zelensky said Russia had had "no success" in Pokrovsk in recent days but acknowledged that "things were not easy" for Ukrainian forces in the area.

He added that a third of all front line clashes were happening in Pokrovsk, and a half of all glide bombs used by the Russians were launched at the town. Earlier last week the Ukrainian president said that Moscow's troops in the area were outnumbering Kyiv's eight to one.

Some Ukrainian commentators have criticised the government's efforts to continue to defend Pokrovsk, arguing that troops were being put at risk.

In a post accompanying the pictures of his visit to Dobropillya, Zelensky on Tuesday wrote: "This is our country, this is our East, and we will certainly do our utmost to keep it Ukrainian."

Russia now controls 81% of the Donetsk region and 99% of neighbouring Luhansk, which collectively make up the Donbas.

Moscow has never relented in its ambition to capture the entirety of the area, which Russia's President Vladimir Putin declared annexed in 2022 despite not being in full control of it.

However, its progress along the front line has been grinding and occupying the heavily fortified towns in northern Donetsk could come at a huge cost of both manpower and resources.

Away from the front line, Russia continues to pummel Ukrainian cities, targeting the country's energy facilities as winter draws in.

A large-scale drone attack overnight Monday targeted the southern port of Odesa on the Black Sea, damaging industrial facilities, causing fires and affecting the local power supply. At least 15 civilians were killed and 44 injured in combined drone and missile attacks across the country at the weekend.

Ukraine continues to hit back, mostly using drones to target industrial sites across Russia and border regions.

On Tuesday, Kyiv said it had attacked a petrochemical plant in the Bashkortostan region and a refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region, while earlier this week, a drone explosion killed a woman and injured three others in the Russian border region of Belgorod.

Four people have been detained after Portuguese authorities intercepted a narco-sub carrying more than 1.7 tonnes of cocaine in the mid-Atlantic.

The semi-submersible vessel was bound for the Iberian peninsula and was seized in recent days, according to officials.

Footage shows the police and navy surrounding the vessel before boarding, seizing the Class A substance and arresting four crew members, who are said to be from South America.

The suspects, including two Ecuadorians, a Venezuelan and a Colombian, were remanded in pre-trial custody after their court appearance in the Azores on Tuesday, said police.

Vítor Ananias, head of Portugal's police unit to combat drug trafficking, told a press conference that their different nationalities showed the organisation behind them was not just based in one country.

The Lisbon-based Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (MAOC) said it had received information in recent days indicating that a criminal organisation was in the process of dispatching a submersible loaded with cocaine destined for Europe.

A few days later, a Portuguese ship successfully located the submersible approximately 1,000 nautical miles (1,852km) off the coast of Lisbon, in an operation backed by the UK's National Crime Agency and the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Having seized the vessel, the navy said it could not be towed back to shore due to poor weather and its fragile construction, and it later sank in the open sea.

Vítor Ananias told reporters that "between the heat, the vessel's fumes and high waves, with difficult weather conditions, even one day is tricky [for the four men on board]. By the end of 15 or 20 days all you want is to get out".

Such incidents like these had been a "recurring situation in recent years", he added, in remarks quoted by Lusa news agency.

In March this year, a similar vessel carrying 6.5 tonnes of cocaine was seized about 1,200 nautical miles from Lisbon.

It also comes as the Trump administration ramps up its attacks on vessels it says are being used to smuggle drugs into the US.

Three men were killed last week in a US strike on an alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday.

Experts have questioned the legality of such strikes under international law and they have drawn strong criticism from Latin American leaders whose citizens have been targeted.

The head of Britain's richest family, Gopichand Hinduja, has died aged 85.

Known as GP, Mr Hinduja and his family made their fortune from the Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group, which operates in 11 sectors including finance, media and entertainment, and oil.

It has about 200,000 staff around the world.

The family said in a statement: "He will leave a deep hole at the heart of our family."

They added that he would be "remembered for his formidable work".

Mr Hinduja helped transform his father's modest textile and trading businesses into a global conglomerate and one of India's largest companies.

Mr Hinduja and his family topped the most recent Sunday Times Rich List with a net worth of £35.3bn. They also ranked 11th on the Forbes list of India's 100 richest businesspeople in 2024.

Mr Hinduja was the second eldest of four brothers who controlled the business for decades.

The oldest of the four, Srichand, died in 2023 at 87.

It is not known who will now take over the leadership of the conglomerate. The youngest brother, Ashok, runs its operations across India including truck maker Ashok Leyland.

The family also own significant real estate in London, including a number of large homes near to St James's Park and Winston Churchill's Old War Office in Whitehall, which has recently been refurbished to include a hotel.

Mr Hinduja largely kept out of the public eye but was involved in the controversial "Hinduja affair" in 2001, which resulted in Lord Peter Mandelson resigning as an MP.

Mr Hinduja had written to Mr Mandelson about his brother Prakash obtaining British citizenship, after the family's charity had donated £1m to the Millennium Dome, for which Mr Mandelson was responsible.

Mr Mandelson resigned as a result, but was later cleared of wrongdoing after an inquiry.

Prakash, his wife, their son and his wife were jailed by a Swiss court last year for exploiting domestic staff in their Geneva mansion.