THIS week, 15 years ago, a council spent £1,500 flying a candidate from Australia for a job – only to give it to a man from just up the road.

Looking to find a new chief executive, Hartlepool Borough Council paid the travel fare and hotel expenses for an applicant from Adelaide.

The candidate was on a shortlist of five brought to the town to be interviewed and to meet senior officials, but she was beaten to the £125,000-a-year job by Newcastle-born Paul Walker.

Independent Hartlepool Councillor Steve Allison said: "To pay 3,000 Australian dollars to fly a candidate from the other side of the world is, quite frankly, a disgrace. I think it is tokenism at its worst."

A council spokesman said: "The council is an equal opportunities employer and therefore has a duty to consider all candidates on their merits.

"For a job of this magnitude it would have been improper to dismiss this candidate simply because of where she lives."

Meanwhile, a charity was thousands of pounds better off thanks to North-East sporting stars.

Celebrities turned up to the golf course Ramside Hall, Durham City, to take part in Steve Harper's Celebrity Charity Golf Challenge including former Newcastle United player Peter Beardsley, golfer Gary Donnison and Geordie comedian, actor and musician Brendan Healy.

The event was the second of its kind to be held for the Clarke Lister Brain Haemorrhage Foundation, of which Steve Harper is a patron.

The charity was launched by Brian and Carole Lister, of Peterlee, County Durham, whose ten-year-old son Clarke died of the condition in 1996.

Mrs Lister was delighted with the success of the day.

She said: "We made about £5,000 last year and, although we haven't counted all the money, we have raised more than that."

And to mark 50 years of the School Crossing Patrol Act, lollipop men and ladies gathered at Park Lane Infant School, in Guisborough, to receive golden anniversary badges from their mayor.

Pupils at the school dressed up in old and new patrol officer uniforms in celebration, where they heard that in 1974, school crossing patrol officers switched from wearing white coats and black hats to the now familiar yellow coats.