COURAGE and positivity are the words which formed the theme for last week's Durham Police Wow Awards which shone the spotlight on those who have demonstrated outstanding service.

It was a pleasure to be involved by interviewing four inspirational people on stage, with the aim of showing how much can be achieved when courage and positivity come together. Here are the humbling stories of Gary, Hannah, Pat and Lyndon...

GARY LYNCH

GARY came from a good family but hated authority when he was growing up in Bishop Auckland and ended up running with the wrong crowd.

He began sniffing petrol and gas and began taking drugs. That led him into petty crime and at 14 he was sentenced to two and a half years in Aycliffe Young Offenders Institution.

Once inside, his life began to be turned round by education. He enjoyed being taught things he was interested in, like art, music, photography and kayaking.

His parents campaigned to get his sentenced reduced and it was to prove to be a big mistake. He was freed after a year and went straight back to the street corner and a life dragged down by drugs. Cannabis led to speed, cocaine and heroin and, before long, he was a dealer.

He had a partner and two daughters but his family life fella apart as he spiralled into addiction and eight years of homelessness. He slept in a tin shed and stole from his family to feed his habit.

His weight dropped to seven stones and his lowest point came when he tried to commit suicide by poisoning himself with drugs but couldn't find a vein. "I just wanted to die in that shed but I couldn't even manage that," he said.

It was impossible to do justice to his story in a 15 minute interview but, somehow, Gary found the courage and the positivity to come back from the brink.

He went through rehabilitation with the North East Council on Addictions. It didn't work the first time. He was back on heroin within two days. But he went back and made it work.

Gary, now 41, no longer lives in a tin shed. He has a new car and his own flat. He works as a full-time substance misuse worker for the Lifeline charity and is on secondment to Durham Police. The child who hated authority is now a man helping the police in the frontline fight against drugs.

He is also studying counselling and health and social skills at East Durham College and plans to get a master's degree in Hypnotherapy and Neuro-linguistic Programming.

Best of all, his daughters are back in his life. "I think they're proud of me now," he said.

And so they should be.

HANNAH BEARD

AT 17, Hannah has crammed a lot into her relatively short and challenging life.

She lived in Consett for eight years before a dispute with a neighbour flared into violence and the family were forced to move to Sacriston.

Sadly, her parents became increasingly involved in drugs and, with her father in and out of prison, Hannah was bullied at school. Her low-point came when she was just eight when her alcoholic mother drank while on medication. With her father out dealing drugs, it was left to Hannah – just a little girl – to resuscitate her mother and nurse her through the night. She knew what to do from reading a first-aid book and watching Casualty on television.

By the time she was 12, she was so depressed she was suicidal and regularly self-harming as her family fell apart. In 2013, Hannah, along with her brother and sister, were put into foster care, first with their grandparents and then with carers in Peterlee. Depression continued to blight her life.

The transformation in Hannah's life began when she joined the EDDY Project, a Durham Police initiative to engage, divert and develop young people. She found fulfilment in community projects, such as helping elderly people to avoid doorstep crime. One of the other members of the project happened to be a boy who had been the worst bully at school. The bullying stopped, the depression improved.

Hannah then joined the Police Cadets, getting more involved in community work. She did well in her GCSEs, won a Shrievalty Award, and was chosen as Prom Queen, ending up dancing with the Prom King, who happened to be the same former bully.

Hannah is back in touch with her siblings and her parents who are both clean of drugs. She is studying at Newcastle College and has become a volunteer with the Red Cross with ambitions to be a paramedic. She is utterly inspirational.

PAT'S STORY

PAT Gibson's story has been told many times in The Northern Echo since her son Michael was attacked, and fatally injured in Darlington town centre in April 1992.

Michael was just a month away from his 21st birthday when he was the victim of an unprovoked attack by a yob called David Clark. So began a tragedy which was to end an innocent young man's life but lead to a change in a hideously outdated law.

The "Year And A Day" rule, introduced centuries before life-support systems, meant that if a victim of an assault lived for 366 days or more, their attackers could not stand trial for murder or manslaughter.

Michael died after laying in a coma for 16 months. David Clark was jailed for just two years for grievous bodily harm. The law was an ass and Pat Gibson - with the outraged support of this newspaper and its readers, along with Darlington MP Alan Milburn - got it changed.

Now, the change in the law means there are no such miscarriages of justice - no getting away with murder. "That means a lot to me," said Pat, who now lives in West Cornforth.

She is one of the bravest, most determined people I've ever met.

LYNDON'S STORY

LYNDON Longhorne's story has also well-documented in this paper and will, therefore not begrudge the extra space afforded to myother interviewees.

Suffice to say, he is the boy from Crook whose body was devastated by meningitis when he was a baby. He lost both legs and one arm and yet, incredibly, he became a champion swimmer, the holder of seven national titles.

Lyndon has become a friend. He's my hero and one of the things I love about him is his since of humour.

As we took to the stage, he leaned across and whispered: "Listen, don't worry if me leg starts vibrating." It would just be because his high-tech prosthetic limb needed re-charging, he explained.

How could anyone – police officers or those from any walk of life - not be moved to put their own challenges into perspective?

Courage and positivity. Gary, Hannah, Pat and Lyndon – you have it in spades.