JOURNALISTS working for The Northern Echo have won a string of honours at the North-East Press Awards.

The paper scooped the highest number of individual accolades at the Tom Cordner Awards at Newcastle Civic centre on Saturday night, earning praise for the quality of its writing, photographs and design.

Sister paper, The Darlington & Stockton Times, was named North-East Weekly Newspaper of the Year for the second year running.

The Northern Echo roll of honour was led by Mike Amos, who again won the North-East Columnist of the Year title "for the breadth of his subject matter, the joyful English and the sheer volume of his output".

Mike was described by the judges as "the Godfather of columnists".

It was a night of double celebration for Mike Urwin, who was named North-East Photographer of the Year and also won the award for the Picture of the Year in memory of late Northern Echo photographer Ian Weir.

His colleague Stuart Boulton was highly commended.

Richard Davies won the award for designing the best front pages in the North-East for the second consecutive year. His citation read: "The Northern Echo is known for its bold use of pictures, nowhere more so than on the front page, which is one of the most distinctive in British journalism".

The other stars of the night for The Northern Echo were Lindsay Jennings, Feature Writer of the Year; Arifa Akbar, Women's Writer of the Year; Steve Pratt, Arts Writer of the Year; and John Dean, Freelance Journalist of the Year, predominantly for his Northern Eco environmental contributions to this paper.

Gavin Engelbrecht was highly commended for his investigation into the dangerous state of railway bridges in the region, and Barry Nelson was highly commended in the health section.

A lifetime of achievement award was presented to Jim McTaggart, who recently retired after 22 years as editor of the Teesdale Mercury.

The North-East Newspaper of the Year was the Evening Chronicle in Newcastle.

Guest of honour was David Yelland, editor of The Sun, who recalled his time as Stanley office reporter for The Northern Echo.

Chairman of the judges Alastair McCall said: "2001 provided a stern test for the regions newspapers nationally through foot-and-mouth and globally through events at the World Trade Centre and Afghanistan.

"They rose to the challenge and showed the nationals how to do it."