“DID you check the small print?” 

By the time you hear those words from an insurer, holiday firm, car hire company or the like, you are usually starting to get the sickening feeling that the damage is already done.

If we are honest most of us rarely bother to check small print. Who has the time to go through all of the terms and conditions underlining the myriad transactions we undertake every year? Clicking the “I Agree” button on a website is about as far as many of us get to verifying what we are binding ourselves to.

Nevertheless the failure to check such details is at the heart of two of the most intriguing stories the Echo has published this week.

Durham University academics Ernesto Schwartz-Marín and Arely Cruz-Santiago are facing deportation for breaching visa regulations. The couple spent nine months in Mexico on a project to help record people missing as a result of the country’s war on drugs.

Under UK rules, non-EU migrants cannot spend more than 180 days abroad unless they are attending to a national or international humanitarian or environmental crisis. The Home Office argues that the couple’s work does not qualify - something campaigners strongly disagree with.

Closer to home, but no less contentious, is the story involving the felling of trees by a road in Darlington, which has many townsfolk up in arms.

While locals admit that they knew some trees would go as part of a housebuilding scheme, they had not realised the full extent of the cull. Darlington Borough Council insists that planning permission was in place for all the trees to be removed.

The black and white answer to settle both of these cases may well be: "You should have checked the small print" but there should also be room for common sense to play a part.

British society works best when we apply the spirit rather than just the letter of the law.