When I interviewed surgeon Neil Hopper in 2023 for BBC News, I believed I was speaking to a man who had been humbled by the life-changing experience of losing his legs to sepsis.

Little did I know, Hopper had a sexual interest in amputation and had frozen his own legs so they would be removed.

Hopper, a consultant vascular surgeon who had carried out hundreds of amputation operations, told me he had come down with a mystery illness on a family camping trip which had led to sepsis and below-knee amputations of both his legs.

In reality, he had used ice and dry ice to freeze his own legs, causing damage that meant they eventually had to be amputated in hospital.

Watching him being jailed on Thursday it was hard to reconcile the reflective man I had interviewed in my capacity as a journalist, with the often graphic details heard in court.

When I interviewed him, I had not doubted the version of events he had told me for one moment. He was a respected surgeon, and why would anyone lie about such a thing?

Warning: Contains information some readers may find upsetting

Back in 2023 Hopper, who grew up in Aberystwyth and Swansea and was living in Truro, Cornwall, appeared almost grateful for the opportunity his life-changing surgery had given him to reassess his life.

"You have to make a lot of sacrifices to be a surgeon and family time is one of them," the father-of-two told me. "I know that was a mistake."

He seemed relaxed, at peace, like a man who had gone through something horrific but had come out the other side changed for the better.

He said losing his legs had led him to "audit" his life and try new things, including applying to become Nasa's first disabled astronaut.

He told me he passed the medical and made it to the final 27 applicants but the space agency eventually selected Paralympic sprinter John McFall.

"My life is more interesting because of what's happened to me," he insisted.

He also praised his wife.

"This didn't happen to me, it happened to us," he said.

The truth behind his amputations was finally laid bare in court on Thursday.

Having his legs amputated was a long-standing ambition for Hopper, the court was told. He had both an obsession and a sexual interest in removing parts of his own body.

The court heard how he had suffered body dysphoria since childhood and his feet were an "unwelcome extra" and a "persisting never-ending discomfort".

For some time, Hopper had been paying to access videos of body mutilation.

The court heard he had bought three videos from the website for £10 and £35, respectively, showing men willingly having their genitals removed.

He also exchanged about 1,500 messages with Marius Gustavson, an amputee who ran the website.

Some of the messages were Hopper seeking advice from Gustavson about how he had brought about his own lower leg amputation.

In one message Hopper told Gustavson: "I've dreamt of this for 20 years."

In another he wrote: "It's going to be awesome being a double amputee."

After his amputations he sent him another message: "It feels so cool. No feet!"

Hopper returned to work for the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust just six months after his amputations.

He went on to make fraudulent claims from two insurance firms, lying that the injuries to his legs were the result of sepsis and not self-inflicted.

During this time he messaged a friend to say he felt he should "milk this as much as possible".

The money - totalling more than £466,000 - was quickly spent on luxury items including home improvements, a campervan and a hot tub.

Hopper's unique insight as an amputee who carried out amputation operations, as well as his bid to go into space garnered plenty of media attention.

"He enjoyed the attention that this generated," the court was told.

It was the police investigation into Gustavson that would be Hopper's undoing.

Gustavson was jailed for life in 2024 for leading an extreme body modification ring.

Hopper was arrested in March 2023 and has been suspended from the medical register since December 2023.

On Thursday he was jailed for two years and eight months for insurance fraud and possessing extreme pornography. The court heard Hopper did not regret the operations, but "bitterly regrets" the "dishonesty" about their cause.

When news of the charges against Hopper broke in July, I was shocked.

Then I was confused - what exactly was he accused of doing? And why would someone inflict those injuries on themself?

Then I was concerned. Was I wrong to have taken what he told me at face value?

Fact-checking is an essential part of journalism, but on the face of it this did not appear to be a difficult story to confirm.

I was communicating with Hopper through his place of work, his work as a surgeon was well-documented, and his bilateral amputations were plain to see.

In court Hopper's case was described as "very unique", a "saga" and "difficult to comprehend".

He had managed to pull the wool over the eyes of medics, two insurance companies, and those who knew him - who expressed shock in character references read to the court.

Remembering my conversation with Hopper while watching his sentencing on Thursday, it was clear that as a journalist you never quite know where a story will take you.

Like many Australians, Rach grew up "terrified of the sun" in a country that has the unenviable title of skin cancer capital of the world.

Her childhood was characterised by the infamous "no hat, no play" rule that is commonplace in Australian schools, 90s advertisements that warned the sun would give you cancer, and sunscreen tubes that stood guard at every door in her home.

It made the now 34-year-old the kind of person who religiously applies sunscreen multiple times a day and rarely leaves the house without a hat.

So she was shocked when doctors found a skin cancer on her nose during a check last November, something they said was abnormal given her age and ray-dodging regime.

Though technically classified as a "low grade" skin cancer – a basel cell carcinoma – it had to be surgically removed, leaving the Newcastle mum with a scar just below her eye.

"I was just confused, and I was a little bit angry because I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'" Rach – who asked that her surname not be used – told the BBC. "I thought I'd done all the right stuff and it still happened to me."

That rage grew when she learned the sunscreen she had been using for years was unreliable and, according to some tests, offered next to no sun protection at all.

Independent analysis by a trusted consumer advocacy group has found that several of Australia's most popular, and expensive, sunscreens are not providing the protection they claim to, kicking off a national scandal.

There has been a massive backlash from customers, a probe launched by the country's medical watchdog, multiple products pulled from shelves, and questions raised about the regulation of sunscreen around the globe.

"It's definitely not an issue isolated to Australia," cosmetic chemist Michelle Wong told the BBC.

The reckoning

Australians have a complicated relationship with the sun: they love it, but they also fear it.

Effective public health messaging – which has drilled "Slip, Slop, Slap" into their heads – competes with a beauty culture which often idolises bronzed skin.

The country has the highest incidence of skin cancers in the world and it is estimated that two out of three Australians will have at least one cut out in their lifetime.

So when Choice Australia released its damning report in June, it immediately made waves. The group had tested 20 sunscreens in an independent accredited Australian lab, finding 16 did not meet the SPF, or skin protection factor, rating listed on the packet.

Ultra Violette's Lean Screen SPF 50+ Mattifying Zinc Skinscreen, a facial product that Rach says she used exclusively, was the "most significant failure" identified. It returned a result of SPF 4, something that shocked Choice so much it commissioned a second test that produced a similar reading.

Other products that did not meet their SPF claims included those from Neutrogena, Banana Boat, Bondi Sands and the Cancer Council - but they all rejected Choice's findings and said their own independent testing showed their sunscreens worked as advertised.

The uproar was immediate for the brands named in the report, and also prompted a swift response from the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA), which said it would investigate the findings and "take regulatory action as required".

Ultra Violette bit back, saying they were "confident that Lean Screen is safe and effective" and detailing extensive testing of the product – which has been sold in almost 30 countries, including the UK, and retails for upwards of A$50 (£24, $33).

But less than two months later, it announced that Lean Screen would be recalled after it returned inconsistent results across eight different sets of lab testing.

"We are deeply sorry that one of our products has fallen short of the standards we pride ourselves on and that you have come to expect of us," read a statement published to the brand's Instagram account.

It added that it has "since ended the relationship with the initial testing lab".

In the past fortnight, other brands have "paused" the sale of at least four more products, none of which were included in the Choice report.

Rach knows there is no way to prove that there is a link between her diagnosis and the brand of sunscreen she relied on. She says she is not alleging there is such a connection.

But she said Ultra Violette's response to the scandal was like "a kick in the guts".

She felt that they took no real accountability for the pitfalls of their product, and was let down by their decision to continue selling it for two months despite doubts over its efficacy.

"I just had like the five stages of grief, you know?" she said. "I was angry, I was upset, I was almost in denial."

Like Rach, a horde of annoyed customers say the saga has shaken their faith in the industry.

"A refund isn't really going to reverse years of sun damage, is it?" one wrote in response to Ultra Violette's recall statement.

Choice has urged the TGA to conduct further investigations into the sunscreen market, and also urged any brands who had reason to question the SPF protection listed on their products to remove them from sale immediately.

"It is clear there is a serious issue in the Australian sunscreen industry that urgently needs to be addressed," said Rosie Thomas, the director of campaigns, in a statement to the BBC.

How did this happen?

While in Europe sunscreen is classed as a cosmetic, Australia regulates it as a therapeutic good – essentially a medicine – which means it is subject to some of the most robust sunscreen regulations in the world.

And that's something many of the brands caught up in this saga trade on. So, how did this happen?

An investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation found that a single US-based laboratory had certified at least half of the products that had failed Choice's testing, and that this facility routinely recorded high test results.

It also found that several of the sunscreens pulled from shelves shared a similar base formula and linked them to a manufacturer in Western Australia.

The TGA says it does not usually speak about ongoing investigations because it does not want to compromise them, but that it is also looking into "reviewing existing SPF testing requirements" which can be "highly subjective".

"The TGA is also aware that it is common practice for different sunscreen products to share the same or similar base formulations," a spokesperson said in a statement to the BBC.

"Ultimately it is the sponsor's [seller's] responsibility to ensure that their medicine remains compliant with all applicable legislative requirements."

Consistent and comfortable sunscreens which offer high protection are very technical and difficult to make, says Dr Wong, founder of Lab Muffin Beauty Science.

Everyone's skin responds differently to the product, he adds, and it's one that is almost always being stress-tested – by sweat, water, or makeup.

It is very difficult to rate effectively for the same reasons. Historically, it has been done by spreading the sunscreen on 10 people at the same thickness, then timing how long it takes for their skin to start burning both with and without the product applied.

While there are clear guidelines as to what you are looking for, Dr Wong says there is still a lot of variability. That is down to skin texture or tone, or even the colour of the walls, and "different labs get different results".

But she says results are also quite easy to fake, pointing to a 2019 probe by US authorities into a sunscreen testing laboratory which resulted in the owner being jailed for fraud.

Many sunscreen brands from all over the world use the same manufacturers and testing labs - and so this issue is unlikely to be isolated to Australia, she adds.

"Until someone goes out and tests a whole bunch of sunscreens in other countries, we just don't know the extent of it."

She says the scandal is a reminder that regulations are only as good as they are enforced.

But while it has touched a nerve for many people who are at high risk for skin cancer simply by virtue of being Australian, Dr Wong said she felt the panic triggered by the investigation was blown out of proportion.

She points to the world's largest clinical trial of sunscreen, done in the 90s, which found that the daily use of an SPF 16 sunscreen dramatically dropped skin cancer rates.

"95% of the sunscreens tested [by Choice] have high enough SPF to more than half the incidence of skin cancer," Dr Wong said.

"Some of the SPF testing, I feel, has become a bit more of a marketing exercise than a real reflection of efficacy."

The most important thing you can do when choosing a sunscreen, she says, is actually wear enough of it – a full teaspoon at least for each part of your body, face included.

And ideally you should apply it about every two hours, especially if you have been sweating a lot or swimming.

Experts also advise that you combine the sunscreen with other safety methods, such as wearing protective clothing and seeking out shade.

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Dealing with the price tag

Marina, a 45-year-old freelance copywriter, has relied on WhatsApp for her work and personal life for years.

But one day last month that abruptly changed when a call to a colleague did not go through properly. They tried Telegram - another messaging app popular in Russia - but that did not work either.

She was one of millions of Russians facing new restrictions imposed in mid-August by Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, on calls made through the two platforms - the country's most popular apps.

The timing coincides with the rollout of a new "national messenger" app known as Max and created by a Russian firm closely controlled by the Kremlin.

Monthly user numbers of WhatsApp and Telegram are estimated to be 97 and 90 million respectively — in a country of 143 million people.

From parents' chats to tenants' groups, much of daily life runs through them. WhatsApp - whose owner, Meta, is designated an extremist organisation in Russia - is especially popular with older people because of how easy it is to register and use.

In some parts of Russia, particularly in remote and sparsely connected places in the Far East, WhatsApp is much more than chatting with friends and colleagues. Mobile browsing is sometimes painfully slow, so people use the app to coordinate local matters, order taxis, buy alcohol, and share news.

Both apps offer end-to-end encryption which means that no third party, not even those who own them, are able to read messages or listen to calls.

Officials say the apps refused to store Russian users' data in the country, as required by law, and they have claimed scammers exploit messaging apps. Yet Central Bank figures show most scams still happen over regular mobile networks.

Telecom experts and many Russians see the crackdown as the government trying to keep an eye on who people talk to and potentially what they say.

"The authorities don't want us, ordinary people, to maintain any kind of relationships, connections, friendships or mutual support. They want everyone to sit quietly in their own corner," says Marina who lives in Tula, a city 180km (110 miles) south of Moscow.

She asked us to change her name, worrying that speaking to foreign media can be dangerous.

A state-approved super-app

The new Max app is being aggressively promoted by pop stars and bloggers, and since 1 September all devices sold in Russia must have Max pre-installed.

It was launched by VK, which owns the country's largest social network of the same name. The Facebook-like platform is controlled by oil-and-gas giant Gazprom and one of Vladimir Putin's closest confidantes, billionaire Yuri Kovalchuk.

Max is set to become a super-app, bringing together multiple functions, including government digital services and banking.

The model mirrors China's WeChat - central to daily life but also a tool of censorship and surveillance.

Max's privacy policy states it can pass information to third parties and government bodies, potentially giving access to the security services or making user data vulnerable to leaks.

In Russia, where people are prosecuted for critical comments or private messages, and a black market of personal data feeds an epidemic of scam calls, this is a real concern.

Although many Russians are worried about the new restrictions on WhatsApp and Telegram, and by the introduction of Max, the state already has vast means to spy on its citizens.

By law, you can only buy a sim card with your national ID, and the security services have access to telecom operators' infrastructure. This means they can find out who you call as well as your whereabouts.

From this month it is now illegal to share your sim card with anyone other than a close relative.

But Max can potentially allow the authorities to read your messages as well - and avoiding the app is getting harder.

Schools are now obliged to move parent chats to the app.

In Rostov region, which borders Ukraine, Max is being adopted as an alert system; in St Petersburg, it is being tied to emergency services.

Despite the push, Max remains far behind its rivals - this week it claimed to have 30 million users.

The Kremlin has long been uneasy of the freedoms offered to people by the internet, which Vladimir Putin once called a CIA project.

The first legislative restrictions came in 2012, soon after mass opposition protests, officially to protect children from suicide-related content.

Ten years later, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the government blocked popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and X, and most independent media, leaving them accessible only through VPNs.

New restrictions keep coming: as of this month, Russians face fines for "deliberately searching" online for extremist materials - more than 5,000 resources from an ever-growing blacklist compiled by the ministry of justice. Examples include a book by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in 2024, and Ukrainian songs.

Another ban targets adverts on platforms linked to "extremist" organisations, in effect ending advertising on Instagram which many small businesses had relied on as a shopfront.

Ads for VPNs are also banned, and while using these apps is not illegal, it may now be treated as an aggravating factor in criminal cases.

State-induced digital detox

Apart from their problems with WhatsApp and Telegram, many Russians are now getting used to life without mobile internet altogether, as entire cities face regular cut-offs.

Since May, every Russian region has seen mobile internet go down.

Blackouts surged through the summer, with up to 77 regions hit by shutdowns simultaneously at the peak, according to the Na Svyazi (In Touch) project.

The authorities justify the measures by the need to protect people and infrastructure from attacks by Ukrainian drones - Kyiv's response to Russia's relentless and deadly bombardments of Ukrainian cities.

But some experts doubt that switching off mobile internet - which many Russians use instead of broadband - is an effective tool against long-distance drone attacks.

Local authorities, who were made responsible for countering drone attacks, have no other means to do it, explains telecom expert Mikhail Klimarev.

"There are no air defence systems, no army - everything's on the frontline," he says. "Their logic goes: we've switched off the internet and there were no drones, hence it works."

In Vladimir, 200km (125 miles) east of Moscow, two of the city's three districts have been offline for almost a month.

"It's impossible to check bus routes or timetables," says Konstantin, a resident who also asked to change his name. "The information boards at stops also show errors."

Taxi fares have risen as drivers cannot accept orders online.

State TV in Vladimir spun the shutdown as "digital detox", showing residents who said they now enjoyed more walking, reading and spending time with friends.

In Krasnoyarsk, a city of more than a million people in Siberia, mobile internet vanished citywide for three days in July and still works poorly.

Some officials rejected complaints, with one Krasnoyarsk bureaucrat suggesting remote workers who lost income should "go and work for the special military operation", as the war in Ukraine is known in Russia. She later apologised.

The government is now working on a scheme that will allow Russians to access only vital online services during shutdowns, such as banking, taxis, deliveries - and the Max messenger.

This is a dangerous step, warns Sarkis Darbinyan, lawyer and co-founder of digital rights group RKS Global.

"There's a possibility the authorities will use this measure for other goals apart from fighting drones," he tells the BBC.

He believes the Kremlin's current approach to the internet mirrors Beijing's.

"Unlike the Chinese, Russians have spent decades enjoying cheap, fast internet and foreign platforms," he says. "These services became deeply ingrained not only in people's daily lives but also in business processes."

For now those who are wary of installing Max on their devices can still find a way around it.

Marina from Tula says her mother, a school teacher, was instructed to download the messenger but claimed to her superiors that she didn't have a smartphone.

People can still call each other using regular mobile networks, although that is more expensive, especially when talking to someone abroad - and not secure.

There are other means available too, like using VPNs or alternative messaging apps, previously reserved for tech nerds and those handling sensitive information.

But as government control over the internet increases, fewer and fewer people will find ways to escape it - and that is assuming the internet is still available for them to try.

Additional reporting by Yaroslava Kiryukhina

About 100 firefighters are tackling a blaze at the BBC's former headquarters, Television Centre, in west London.

London Fire Brigade said 15 engines were at the nine-storey building on Wood Lane, White City, after a fire broke out in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The building is now home to a restaurant and flats, as well as television studios. Authorities said an unspecified number of homes were affected and people had been evacuated.

It is not known what caused the fire or whether there have been any injuries.

London Fire Brigade said it was called out 03:08 BST, with crews drafted in from Hammersmith, North Kensington, Kensington and Chiswick.

Two large turntable ladders were being used to tackle the fire from a height.

"The Brigade is working alongside multi-agency partners, including the Metropolitan Police, to evacuate buildings in the area as a precaution," it said in a statement.

"A rest centre is being set up for residents who have been evacuated from their homes.

"Wood Lane is currently closed to traffic and people are advised to avoid the area as the incident will remain ongoing for some time."