A CRITICAL independent report into the sex abuse suffered by a teenager has highlighted a number of failings in child protection services. The teenager was repeatedly raped by a serial sex attacker despite being on the Child Protection Register
TWO elderly people have been taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation after a house fire in County Durham. Fire crews were called to the blaze in a terraced house on West Drive, Lanchester at around 6pm. A spokeswoman for County Durham and
A BUSINESS woman has hit out after receiving two parking tickets in the space of an hour when a council took over parking enforcement. Pauline Osborne, who runs a solid fuel heating store in Victoria Road, Darlington, is angry after being issued with
Viv Hardwick discovers how probation officer Andy Reiss went into showbiz thanks to Les Miserables. ANDY Reiss is the exception to the rule after forging a career as a performer and director with Les Miserables without any formal theatre training
EVERY car manufacturer worth its salt has a "green" sub-brand these days. They have a variety of esoteric names, usually beginning with Eco, Blue or Green, but, essentially, they are all the same. A manufacturer takes a standard turbodiesel hatchback
Newcastle’s Northern Stage brings David Bradley and Jeremy Dyson’s view of Roald Dahl’s Twisted Tales to the North-East this season. Viv Hardwick reports. ACROSS Northern Stage’s three stages North- East audiences can expect a hint of Chekhov, a
Stars: Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leon, Juliette Lewis, Peter Gallagher, Clea DuVall Running time: 107 mins Rating: ★★★ HERE we go with one of those real life stories that sound like they’ve been made up – a wife and mother
Stars: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz, Edward James Olmos, David Harbour, Tom Wilkinson Running time: 118 mins Rating:★★★ LIKE its masked hero who poses as a bad guy in order to do good, The Green Hornet is a crazy mixed
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are rumoured to be romancing for real after the critics saw Blue Valentine. Steve Pratt reports. CANADIAN actor Ryan Gosling and co-star Michelle Williams moved in with each other just like the couple in the film
Stephen Tompkinson talks to Viv Hardwick as he dedicates his latest Tyneside play to the memory of his good friend Pete Poslethwaite. STOCKTON-BORN actor Stephen Tompkinson has dedicated his latest North- East-set play to the memory of his
Gardeners wanting some manure should note Sunday February 27th in their diaries. For the second year running, Catterick Young Farmers will be holding their charity Muck Chuck. A donation of £2 per bag or £4 per wheelbarrow is requested, which
KIWI quintet The Naked and Famous are playing York Fibbers on March 1. The group formed as a duo in 2008 when Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith met at an Auckland music school and were joined by Aaron Short, David Beadle and Jesse Wood. Young Blood
I CAN picture a scene from an old black-and-white romantic movie, a plush ballroom complete with high society, chain-smoking gentlefolk. The song has a swaying, American bluesy feel, with an easy-going orchestral backdrop, including the excellent
I’m lucky to have been asked to appear at the annual memorial concert for the Hartley mining disaster, to be held at Hartley Memorial Hall this Saturday night, just a few miles north of the River Tyne. The last time I played there, it was
WHAT’S ON The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, The Sage Gateshead, 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office 0191-443-4661. Sunday, the choir join Durham Cathedral Choir for a full sung Eucharist in the cathedral, 11.15am. REVIEWS Beethoven: Violin
WHAT’S ON Tonight Darlington Big Band, Travellers Rest, Cockerton, 01325-382676; Tomorrow Extreme Measures, Saltburn Community Centre, 01287-624622; Saturday Terry Seabrook’s Milestones, Gateshead Old Town Hall, 0191-433- 6965. CD
Redcar & Cleveland Council tops North East league for recycling as landfill tax amount is set to rocket to £62M in region if action is not taken Landfill Tax, designed to encourage recycling, is due to rise very sharply over the next four years
I’m sure the last shot hasn’t been fired for Trace Adkins. This album contains 28 tracks all of which have entered the Top Forty in the charts. While with Capitol, he produced eight studio albums in 13 years. On this double CD set he includes debut
Since winning Sky talent show Must Be The Music, its been all go for Emma’s Imagination, as she tells Andy Welch. WHILE Sky’s talent show Must Be The Music, which began last summer, didn’t arrive with the same fanfare as its ITV1 rival, The
The artistic director of the Russian State Ballet of Siberia talks to Viv Hardwick about his company which plays Darlington Civic Theatre on January 20-21-22. Tickets: £24-£29.50. Box office: 01325-486-555 darlingtonarts.co.uk. How important
A CARE officer who struck a 14-year-old detainee painfully on the nose hours before the teenager killed himself later told police he used the controversial restraint technique "on instinct", an inquest heard today. Adam Rickwood, the youngest person
JANICE Battersby is off on holiday with her new bloke Gaz. At least that’s the plan. But she goes and spoils it by knocking back the hard stuff faster than the treasury can put up the tax on booze. As a result Janice is bumped off the flight for
A TOTAL of 112 people with flu have died in the UK since September, the Government said today. The figure is up on the 50 cases reported last week and includes six children under five, nine aged five to 14 and 70 aged 15 to 64. Of 81 cases where information
Sunderland 1 Newcastle 0 April 5, 1980 THIRTY-ONE years after Sunderland narrowly defeated Newcastle United to set their promotion charge in motion and condemn Newcastle to mid-table mediocrity, the two bitter rivals now flying high in
PEOPLE in Bishop Auckland are invited to don their glad rags for a mayor's civic charity ball. Bishop Auckland mayor Lesley Zair is hosting the event at Bishop Auckland Town Hall on Saturday, February 5, in aid of her chosen charity, the Butterwick
Human Planet (BBC1, 8pm) Not Going Out (BBC1, 9.30pm) How I Met Your Mother (E4, 9.30pm) THE facts and figures are impressive – three years in the making, more than 70 locations in the farflung corners of the globe, and never-before-seen stories
EVERYWHERE I look, there are sheepish-looking dads wearing jumpers, cardigans, hats, ties and socks they wouldn’t really want to be seen dead in. But they have no choice because these garments of highly dubious taste were Christmas gifts from
DOROTHY Howard, the much-missed sort of barmaid who also pulled the punters, celebrated her 80th birthday on New Year’s Eve. The trade, she fears, has been seriously diluted. “These days you go into a pub and it’s like you’re invisible,” she says
Retaining Saltburn’s quaint character but attracting more visitors at the same time, is proving to be a challenge for organisers of the the town’s birthday celebrations. MANY a 20th century traveller, some yet further down the line, may
PUPILS are donning their dancing shoes to showcase their work in Bishop Auckland. More than 100 young people from the town's Bishop Barrington School are taking part in the event on Tuesday, February 1, at 7pm Pupils from all year groups are participating
THERE was a European theme to lessons at a Willington school as pupils gained hands-on experience of Polish culture. Youngsters at Willington CofE Primary School took part in Polish dancing, artwork and cookery sessions as part of a community cohesion
MINING and development firm The Banks Group has received permission to extract an additional two million tonnes of coal from one of its surface mines in the region. The Durham City-based firm, employing 400 people, has been given approval for
A NORTH-EAST emergency repair business is taking on 100 workers this month after demand during the big freeze prompted it to bring forward its expansion plans. Call-out and repair company Homefix 24/7, which employs 60 people at its Middlesbrough
THE FTSE 100 Index surged ahead yesterday closing 36.7 points, or 0.6 per cent, ahead to 6050.7 after Portugal borrowed 1.25 billion euros (£1bn) in a bond auction. Many economists fear Portugal is to follow Greece and Ireland and be forced
WILLIAM ROBINSON in his article “Echoing a social concern” (Echo, Jan 12) says that the propensity of some men to exploit vulnerable young females for sex is a concern we had long before Pakistani immigrants. That is not to say that there are
I WAS delighted, as all Darlington residents no doubt were, to see an elated Councillor Steve Harker celebrating a reprieve for the Civic Theatre on the front page of The Northern Echo (Jan 12). However, my delight was tinged with a large degree
A NORTH-EAST consulting engineering practice is to expand its operations into the North-West. Patrick Parsons has appointed Chris Gooch-Butler as business development director to lead the expansion. Originally from Chester, Mr Gooch-Butler has
SOARING demand for the services of a County Durham environmental business will see it take on a dozen workers in the next few weeks. OHS is expanding into larger premises at its offices in The Old Brewery, in Castle Eden, to help it deliver a
STRAY sparks from a grinder are being blamed for a large fire which gutted a derelict factory that used to store frozen turkeys. Firecrews tackled the blaze at the old factory on the Dalton Industrial Estate as thick black clouds swept across
NORTH-EAST baker Greggs is to create more than 100 jobs in the region this year, its chief executive said yesterday. The company could also open its first North-East concept store after the success of the more upmarket branches in London. Chief
A FULL-PAGE advert in The Northern Echo (Jan 12) from one of our local universities offers a diverse range of subjects to study for foundation degrees. I’m thinking of applying to take a joint modular course and qualifying for a combined degree
ANDREW LAIDLAW is trying to contact a former friend. She is Barbara Gowland, who was last known to be living in Rowan Place, Newton Aycliffe. She had a son Andrew. To help contact Mr Laidlaw at andyjlaidlaw@yahoo.co.uk.
HAVING just read Harry Mead’s column on the persecution of the grey squirrel (Echo, Jan 11), I wonder where he has gotten his feelings for this American pest. I can remember when I was a kid I used to see red squirrels and pine martens in my local
IT was extremely disappointing to read in The Northern Echo (Jan 12) that the full £60m of the Tees Valley Industrial Programme will fall short by £18m. This money was to create new businesses, to diversify into new industries like the low carbon
RESIDENTS are being asked to inform on drink drivers to the police in a bid to reduce the number of road deaths caused by the offenders. North Yorkshire Police ran a campaign over Christmas whereby locals were asked to identify drink drivers leading
PETER MULLEN’S plea for help in finding kitchen gadgets that work (HAS, Jan 11) should not be ignored. Bottle openers are serious gadgets. However, a hardware store is definitely the wrong place to find a decent one. Any good wine merchant will
MY new year challenge is familiar – how to be a great dad, yet find time to watch all major football and rugby matches – but what are the tests ahead for our three party leaders? The start of 2011 is a good time to explore the hurdles and potential
REACTION to David Miliband’s hunt for work shows how hard it is to be an MP. He is to teach politics two hours a week, he is to be a non-executive director at Sunderland FC and he is pitching TV ideas to the BBC. Mr Miliband was the stand-out candidate
After being missing for more than a decade, a 17th Century Shakespeare First Folio is on public display in Durham. Steve Pratt finds out why a conservator is handling it with care. IT was the first – and only – time Liz Branigan, senior conservator
WHY all the fuss about the bonuses paid to bankers? It’s not the bankers’ fault that the head of Barclays, Bob Diamond, is to receive a seemingly generous £8m bonus. After all, his bank did not ask to be bailed out. Surely the fault lies in the
DURHAM County Council has announced proposals to withdraw subsidies for most evening and Sunday bus services in the county (Echo, Jan 10). Were it not saddled with the farcical free concessionary travel scheme, then these cuts would not be as
YET again, David Lacey tries to convince us that “global warming is a campaign of misinformation being peddled by those interests that stand to make billions out of the global warming scam”. We are expected to believe that the scientists studying
IT was welcome news to read in my classic car magazine that now we are in the EU, the UK classic car tax system has to be changed to mirror current European tax exempt changes. This means that any pre-1980 classic cars are to be classed as tax
Racehorse trainer Howard Johnson says he's happy to take a lie detector test on The Jeremy Kyle Show to prove his innocence over animal welfare breaches. The veteran trainer who lives near Crook, County Durham, is due to appear before a British Horseracing
TEN people, including trainer Jeff Pearce, former trainer Geoff Huffer and jockey Jerry O’Dwyer, have been warned off by the British Horseracing Authority at the conclusion of the Sabre Light affair. The investigation concerned the horse’s fifth-placed
RAMBLING Minster can defy his advancing at years at Catterick as he tackles the Watt Fences North Yorkshire Grand National Handicap Chase. Now aged 13, Keith Reveleys charge ran a remarkable race to finish second over hurdles at Kelso on his
CAPTAIN Paul Collingwood admitted he knew little about Chris Woakes’ batting ability before the 21-year-old turned match-winner on his England debut in the first Twenty20 against Australia in Adelaide. Woakes kept his nerve in a tense finale to
ROB ANDREW is bracing himself for more rows with French clubs over the release of James Haskell, Tom Palmer and Jonny Wilkinson for England duty during the RBS 6 Nations. Last year, Max Guazzini, the president of Stade Francais, claimed England
WITH Sam Collins missing for at least the next two games, Mick Wadsworth is today likely to add a centre-half to his Hartlepool United ranks today. The captain was injured in the home win over Oldham on New Year's Day and hoped to be back in action in
Darlington hope to announce the arrival of at least one new player today as Mark Cooper closes in on his January transfer targets. The manager revealed after Tuesday's win over Histon that he hoped to complete a deal for a "flair player" who has Premier
STEVE BRUCE will never forget how Newcastle United inflicted one of the darkest days of his managerial career on him last Halloween - and he has still not been able to bring himself to watch a repeat of Sunderland's horror show. The 77-day wait for Sunderland
PLANS have been unveiled for a national memorial to one of the British Army’s most famous regiments – the Durham Light Infantry (DLI). It will feature a bronze life-size DLI bugler dressed in Korean War era uniform – Korea being the regiment’s
THE public is getting the opportunity to see a rare edition of Shakespeare’s plays at an exhibition in the region. The 17th Century First Folio, published in 1623, is the centrepiece of a Durham University Treasures display. This is the inaugural
THE wedding plans of several couples have been thrown into disarray after they were told a popular reception venue had gone out of business. Management from Pinchinthorpe Hall Country House Hotel contacted the couples with the news on Monday
THE former professional boxer behind a security firm once labelled a “private police force” believes cuts to policing budgets could see demand soar – and has revealed that his guards are on a bonus if they catch a burglar. Francis Jones, of Darlington
NEWCASTLE boss Alan Pardew is hoping to finally make some transfer headway after holding a rare face-to-face meeting with Mike Ashley yesterday. Ashley's private helicopter landed at Newcastle's Darsley Park training ground yesterday lunch-time
A NORTH-EAST multimillionaire has won a libel action over claims he is a creationist who sponsors state schools to impose Christian fundamentalism on children. Sir Peter Vardy has accepted a donation to charity in settlement of the court case.
THE Japanese government yesterday lobbied ministers to urge them not to reject Hitachi’s £7.5bn plans to bring train building back to the region. Shin Ebihara, the country’s ambassador to the UK, requested the meeting with Transport Secretary
TONY Mowbray is expected to make a decision over Andrew Davies' future shortly, after watching the defender make his first Middlesbrough appearance for three-and-a-half years yesterday afternoon. Davies started at centre-half as Boro's reserves
SCORES of mourners have paid their last respects to a former SAS soldier who 32 years ago survived being shot in the head. David Patrick Collins, 56, was put to rest yesterday after losing his seven-month battle with pancreatic cancer on Christmas
MORE than 1,000 people will turn out tonight for the biggest grassroots sports event of the year in the North- East. The Local Heroes Awards for 2010, which were postponed due to the freezing weather last month, will be presented in a marquee
A WOMAN who repeatedly made false allegations against her husband could be jailed if she breaks a court order to stop her wasting police time. Amanda Taylor was yesterday prohibited from contacting more than a dozen named people, including a doctor
THE youngest person to die in a British prison in modern times had been locked up alone in his room with a bleeding nose and no medical help for 25 minutes, an inquest was told yesterday. Fourteen-year-old Adam Rickwood had been struck on the
A TEACHER has forced her local education authority to change its controversial pupil admissions policy which meant some families did not have a hope of sending a child to their local school. The Schools Adjudicator, a national body set up to resolve
Sunderland RCA boss Neil Hixon said that his players completely ran out of steam as they collapsed 5-4 to Gateshead in the Durham Challenge Cup quarter final last night. The RCA led 4-2 with nine minutes to go, but the Conference reserve side clambered
TAXI drivers fighting moves to impose an all-white colour scheme on a county’s fleet have warned councillors to ditch the switch – or face legal action. Adrian Fets, chairman of Durham Independent Taxi Association, said he had taken legal advice
THE retail future of Stockton’s famous High Street is “beyond redemption”, a councillor said yesterday. Bob Gibson’s dismal assessment came as plans for a major development at nearby Teesside Park were narrowly rejected, amid fears it could
An Environmentally Friendly firm is introducing a ground breaking anti-bacterial product to the North East which kills diseases such as MRSA, Swine flu and Legionnaires. Entrepreneurs Adam Hayton and Gurjit Kaila of Cleantech Solution Services
Gillford Park have been forced into another u turn by their landlords -- on the very day that they're due to appear in front of the Northern League management committee. Earlier in the week, Gillford told Saturday's opponents Seaham Red Star that they
