Banks have become embroiled in the row over reckless car loans after mass-mailing customers to convince them to buy luxury vehicles.

Customers of Lloyds Banking Group – which also includes Halifax and Bank of Scotland – have received personalised letters offering them long-term monthly loan deals so they can buy new cars.

Their account balance, income and expenditure were assessed by the bank without their knowledge to see which models they could buy. The letters claimed high-end vehicles were ‘just a few clicks away’, offered deals for cars including BMWs and said loans of up to £60,000 can be approved without a credit check.

Last night, politicians and campaigners accused Lloyds of behaving like a payday lender and called on banks to stop sending such letters. Experts fear that irresponsible lending in the car finance industry is leading to increasing numbers of people defaulting, which could cause another credit crunch.

Last month, a Daily Mail investigation revealed how young drivers are being tempted into dangerously high levels of debt by dealers offering them new cars for no money up front.

Undercover reporters exposed car salesmen offering long-term finance deals to customers who said they were unemployed, working part-time or on low incomes.

Lloyds sent the car loan offers to customers across the country in July. One letter posted to a Lloyds Bank current account holder stated that she was eligible to borrow £18,500, which would pay for a new BMW 3 Series saloon. The customer, who asked not to be named, told the Mail: ‘Lloyds are encouraging people to spend, even overspend, at a time when finance all over the country is supposed to be tight and debt is a huge issue.

‘Why are Lloyds, who were bailed out with public money, encouraging people to take on more debt? It is intrusive. The bank is feeding off people’s sense of consumerist envy. Why do they assume that I think driving a BMW is the be-all and end-all? It’s quite offensive, really. That’s not the kind of service I want from my bank.’

As the customer already holds an account with the bank, credit checks would not have been required had she decided to take on the car loan. However, Lloyds insists that customers still have to go through ‘in-depth affordability assessments’.

British households borrowed a record £31.6 billion to buy cars last year, leading to fears of irresponsible lending. Lord Darling, who was Chancellor during the bailouts of Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Northern Rock, said the rising levels of debt should ‘raise alarm bells’ for the economy.

Former minister and finance campaigner Ros Altmann called the unsolicited car loan offers ‘very worrying’.

She added: ‘The lights are flashing red with car finance and we have to take notice. These unsolicited loan offers designed to entice customers are a real issue and I hope this problem is controlled before it gets out of hand.’

James Daley, of consumer website Fairer Finance, said: ‘This has echoes of the payday loan market. Anything that entices customers into borrowing more is already crossing the line. 

Rock legend David Bowie was consumed by his sex addiction which drove him to sleep with 13-year-old girls, engage in wild orgies, and declare his bisexuality with a 'permanent erection,' a new book reveals. 

The British rock star's reputation of rampant sexual consumption inspired an offering of a warm dead body to sleep with when he was on tour in Philadelphia - an offer he later declined. 

He was fixated on Hitler and watched Nazi movies while high on cocaine - a vice that nearly killed him. 

Bowie snorted so much coke for years he had to have cartilage removed from his body and put in his nose. He never had a cigarette out of his hand and he weighed 95lbs. 

'David Bowie was his very own creation, his very own work of art. This was the boy from postwar Brixton [a district of south London with his sights set on the world,' writes author and British GQ editor Dylan Jones in his exhaustive and fascinating new biography, David Bowie a life to be published by Crown Archetype on September 7.

'His entire professional career was one of myth, legend and invention. Behind the curve in the 60s, the 70s clicked for the singer musically and 'he exploited what he had in a way that was all-consuming,' writes the author.

The son of a cinema usherette and a promotions officer for Bernardo's, a children's charity, Bowie, born David Jones, stated it was a happy childhood but also a lonely one. 

'I saw people deprived around me and kids going to school with their shoes falling apart and kids looking like urchins. It left an impression on me that I never ever wanted to be hungry, or at the wrong end of society', he once told the author.

The impression was strong enough to inspire him to be a star rather than a great musician or artist.

But there was a dark cloud over his mother's side of the family that was riddled with mental instability.

Two or three of his aunts committed suicide; three of his mother's sisters were described as nuts, and one even had a lobotomy because of 'bad nerves. 

A driver who was found to be 79 times over the drug-drive limit following a motorway crash has been banned from driving for three years.

Lee Ainsworth, 34, of Alton, was driving a Ford Focus when it smashed into the back of a Jaguar on the M3 near junction 6, leaving a passenger with a facial injury.

He pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention and driving whilst unfit to drive through drugs at Basingstoke Magistrates' Court. Tests found the level of benzoylecgonine, a product of cocaine, in his system was 79 times over the specified concentration allowed in law for that substance. 

Ainsworth was sentenced to a 12-month community order, disqualified from driving for three years and ordered to do 180 hours' unpaid work.

He will also have to pay £85 in costs and an £85 victim surcharge.

Christopher Pike, from Hampshire Police's roads policing unit, said: 'We were truly shocked when we received the test results.

'By getting behind the wheel that day, knowing how much he had taken, he showed total disregard for the lives of others and it is sheer luck that no-one was seriously hurt or killed. 'We hope this case sends a strong message that we will continue to target those who keep on ignoring these laws.

'The laws are there to protect people's lives and drink or drug-driving is not worth the risk. The consequences can be fatal.'

A Hampshire Police spokeswoman said: 'The court heard how Ainsworth was driving a Ford Focus when it collided into the back of a Jaguar on the M3, close to junction 6, shortly before 3.45pm on April 28.

'The passenger of the Focus suffered a facial injury and was taken to hospital. The male driver of the Jaguar and the female passenger suffered minor injuries. 

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Legendary broadcaster and entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth has died aged 89.

In a statement this afternoon, his family said he died peacefully surrounded by his wife and children.

The statement read: 'It is with great sadness that the Forsyth family announce that Sir Bruce passed away this afternoon, peacefully at his home surrounded by his wife Wilnelia and all his children.

'A couple of weeks ago, a friend visited him and asked him what he had been doing these last eighteen months.

'With a twinkle in his eye, he responded 'I've been very, very busy... being ill!' Unfortunately, not long after this, his health deteriorated and he contracted bronchial pneumonia.

'The family would like to express their thanks to the many people who have sent cards and letters to Bruce wishing him well over his long illness and know that they will share in part, the great, great loss they feel.' 

The former Strictly Come Dancing host is survived by his wife Lady Wilnelia Forsyth and his six children - daughters Debbie, Julie and Laura from his first marriage with Penny Calvert, Charlotte and Louisa with his second spouse Anthea Redfern and a son with Wilnelia - as well as nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. 

Sir Bruce is loved around the country for his 75-year TV career presenting shows including The Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right and Strictly Come Dancing. Fans, former colleagues and celebrities have been expressing their sadness after hearing the news.

Sir Bruce's former Strictly co-host Tess Daly said: 'There are no words to describe how heartbroken I am to be told the saddest news, that my dear friend Sir Bruce Forsyth has passed away.

'From the moment we met, Bruce and I did nothing but laugh our way through a decade of working together on Strictly Come Dancing and I will never forget his generosity, his brilliant sense of humour and his drive to entertain the audiences he so loved. 

'He was a gentleman and a true legend and I will miss him deeply. My heart goes out to Winnie, his wife, and his beautiful family at this sad time.'

Claudia Winkleman added: 'He was the King of TV, the Prince of performers and the most generous of people, all toe-tapping twinkle, all kindness, all love. The Bruce you saw really was the man he was. We'll miss him so much.

Five jihadis in suicide belts have been shot dead by police after they launched a second terrorist attack in a beach resort near Barcelona - eight hours after a 'linked' ISIS van attack killed 13 and injured at least 100 on the city's busiest street.

Seven people including a policeman were injured in Cambrils, 70 miles south-west of the Catalan capital on the Costa Brava, where the Jihadis’ Audi A3 car overturned after ploughing through crowds on the seafront.

The killers, wearing explosive belts, bailed out and attacked people with knives and were seen smiling and shouting taunts at police who then shot them dead at around 1am local time.

Horrifying footage shows bodies wearing suicide belts strewn around the seafront as tourists ran for their lives and hid on the beach as gunshots rang out around them.

Eight hours earlier ISIS jihadis brought terror to another of Europe's major cities when a terrorist drove a van at 60mph through crowds of people on Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas promenade - Spain's busiest street - which was ‘jam-packed’ with holidaymakers and locals send flying like pins.

Police are today hunting for suspect Moroccan-born Moussa Oukabir, 18, who is believed to have been the driver in the Las Ramblas attack. His brother Driss' ID was used to rent the van but he has since been arrested and denied any involvement. The van driver fled on foot and it was unclear if Moussa went on to be involved in the Cambrils attack.

More than 100 men, women and children were mowed down and their broken bodies lay in pools of blood on the famous street. 

Prams and toys lay among the carnage alongside tourists’ ‘selfie sticks’, discarded in the chaos as families fled the terror attack.

Shops, bars and restaurants packed with tourists and locals were abandoned with drinks, half-eaten meals and ice creams abandoned on the tables.  Police believe the terror cell lived in the resort town of Alcanar, 120 miles south of Barcelona, where a house-cum-bomb factory packed with gas canisters was destroyed in an explosion on the day before the first attack.

In the aftermath of the Barcelona attack, two men were arrested and a third shot dead as he rammed officers at a roadblock set up to snare the terrorists, but officials said that incident appeared unrelated to the terror attack.  

The Starboy singer has clearly been taking a leaf out of his girlfriend Selena Gomez’s books after she made a donation earlier this year to the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine for research, into a cure for the autoimmune disease lupus.

And now it’s The Weeknd’s turn to give back as he made the donation to the Suubi Health Centre in Budondo, Uganda, a maternity and children’s medical facility. The 27-year-old’s donation has since been used to complete the building of the first floor of the health centre, meaning it can now cater to 260,000 people in comparison to the 56,000 capacity it could serve before. The Weekend, real name Abel Tesfaye, is said to have been inspired by his friend rapper French Montana who has also donated $100,000 to the institution previously – and has set up his Unforgettable campaign that has provided maternity incubators, premature cribs and funded a blood bank.