Alice Newstead took the drastic action in protest at the practice of finning – where sharks are impaled on hooks, before their fins are sliced off to harvest meat for shark fin soup. The sharks are then thrown back into the ocean still alive.

A crowd gathered outside the Lush cosmetics shop in London's Regent's Street to see the 26-year-old impaled by hooks in her back and gasped as blood trickled down her back.