A BODY was recovered by lifeboat crews this afternoon. After receiving reports of a body floating in Frenchman's Bay, South Shields, Tynemouth and Cullercoats RNLI lifeboats were launched at 4.25pm. Reaching Frenchman's Bay the volunteer crews found
A WOMAN had to be cut free from her car after it was involved in a six vehicle collision on the A1 in North Yorkshire. The woman, in her early 30's was taken to hospital believed to be suffering from lower back injuries. The accident happened just after
WHEN Jasvinder Sanghera fled her family home to escape a forced marriage she sought refuge in the North-East. Tomorrow she returns to the region to officially launch her second book, Daughters of Shame, highlighting the desperate plight of
A DRIVER is tonight in a critical condition after an accident which closed the northbound A1 this evening. The VW Golf clipped the kerb of the central reservation before veering across the carriageway and hitting a tree. The car broke
Newblood is a monthly event where new bands perform in attempt to get more fans. It is for 14-17 year old. For more information on newblood go to: www.myspace.com/newblood Atom, a band from Bedale,was the first band up on the night. Their influences
SHAY GIVEN and Charles N'Zogbia have been left behind on Tyneside for tonight's Premier League clash at Manchester City, fuelling suggestions they will be sold. Given, in particular, is the subject of serious interest from City and talks between the
MARLON King will make his Middlesbrough debut at Chelsea this evening after Gareth Southgate named a surprise starting line-up at Stamford Bridge. King, who has joined on loan from Wigan until the end of the season, will line up as a lone striker with
A MAJOR equestrian event planned for early spring in the grounds of a North-East castle was called off today because of the wet winter weather. Organisers have cancelled Witton Castle Horse Trials, in County Durham, due to take place on March
A GRANDFATHER has raised thousands of pounds for charity by climbing the highest mountain in Africa. Brian Everett, a 73-year-old grandfather of eight, has raised over 5,000 for Cancer Research UK by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Mr Everett
OFFENDERS have been helping to clean up countryside around the Borough. The work was carried out as part of the community part of the offenders' sentences, which require them to do unpaid work. They worked with the Darlington Borough
A £2M project has been announced that will transform one of the region’s major attractions. The interior of the award-winning Yorkshire Museum in York will be given a complete new look during the work. The trust which runs the museum plan to create
A SCHOOLTEACHER hopes to relaunch a campaign to honour a Second World War hero in time to complete the project by Remembrance Day. Karen Eschuk has taken over a fundraising effort to build a statue of airman Andrew Mynarski. She hopes to raise
The phone rings. It's Gordon Brown. Says he's having some problems with this recession thing and wants to discuss his Keynesian fiscal stimulus policy with the editor of The Northern Echo over champagne and canapes at No 10 Downing Street. So
MORE than 200 health trust workers were honoured at a ceremony rewarding those who achieve high standards in patient care. Nine teams and individuals at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust were recognised at the annual Making a
A parish council in Teesdale is on the lookout for a new clerk. Bowes Parish Council needs someone to take minutes at meetings and carry out administrative tasks. The ideal candidate would be from Bowes or a neighbouring parish. For more details about
SHAY GIVEN did not travel with the Newcastle United squad ahead of Wednesday night's game at Manchester City. Magpies owner Mike Ashley is expected to meet with City officials in Manchester to agree a fee for the unsettled Magpies goalkeeper
AN ex-RAF pilot bored with Civvy Street is the region’s answer to an elderly David Hasselhoff as he becomes Hambleton’s oldest swimming pool lifeguard. Peter Fish has yet to don the red shorts of TV’s Baywatch but at 67-years of age he is still sprightly
MEETING CANCELLED: A special meeting of Darlington Borough Council's children and young people's scrutiny committee, which was due to be held at the town hall on Monday February 2, has been cancelled. MOTHERS MEET: St Cuthberts Church, Darlington's Mothers
RESIDENTS views are wanted to help develop plans to turn an open space into a town square in Northallerton. The scheme is for a piece of open space just in front of Northallerton Town Hall at the top of the High Street. The Northallerton and Villages
A JURY has heard that a mother-of-three alleged to have been killed by her partner may have suffered her devastating head injuries in a fall. One doctor said the cause of the bleeding on the brain of 48-year-old Carol Chambers was "more likely" to have
YOUNG footballers are being invited to take part in three days of half term fun. Darlington Football Club's community trust is running a football course during the February half term. The course includes tuition from experienced football
POLICE are appealing for help in piecing together the circumstances of a road accident which left a young girl in hospital. The 12-year-old pedestrian was crossing the road at the Ropery in Pickering when she was in collision with a silver
MP for North West Durham Hilary Armstrong will hold a surgery on Friday February 6 at 6pm at North House in Crook.
FUNDRAISERS who donated hundreds of pounds to a children’s hospice have been given a chance to see its valuable work first hand. Staff from the Student Loans Company, in Darlington, were given a tour of the Butterwick Hospice after raising
TWO people died when an inflatable artwork broke free from its moorings and lifted into the air because of the creator's "gross negligence", a court heard today. Artist Maurice Agis, 77, had conceived the multi-coloured Dreamspace structure
Sunderland winger Jordan Henderson will join Coventry City on loan today. The highly-regarded 18-year-old is being given the opportunity to gain some valuable first team experience with the Sky Blues. His move follows Martyn Waghorn's recent return
POLICE have renewed their appeal for information following a sex attack on a young girl. She was walking along the dimly lit black path which runs from Normanby Road to Church Lane in Eston, near Middlesbrough, in an area known locally as Eston Rec.
A MICHELIN approved chef is hoping to prove that not all takeaways serve greasy junk food after launching a new menu. Paul O'Hara, owner and head chef of The Bridge in Whorlton, near Barnard Castle, County Durham hopes people will choose one of the
A MAN accused of stealing a valuable volume of the works of Shakespeare was today charged with theft. Fifty-one-year-old book and antiques dealer Raymond Scott was initially arrested on suspicion of the theft of the 385-year-old first folio
HARD working volunteers who improve the North York Moors National Park have won an award for their conservation efforts. A group of volunteers with the North York Moors National Park Authority have won a Discovery Award from the John Muir Trust. The
PAY freezes are the most noticeable new trend in January’s settlements posted to the Labour Research Department (LRD) Payline database. But these are balanced by little movement in the levels of pay settlements overall with the mid-point increase
FOUR of the region’s MPs are to meet Business Secretary Lord Mandelson today to ask for his intervention to stop the £300m SeaDragon 1 project being pulled from Teesside. Minister for the North-East Nick Brown, together with MPs for Teesside –
A Wear Valley partnership is running out of cash casting doubt on jobs and popular community events. The three staff at Crook Community Partnership have been told their contracts end in March after the lottery funding which pays their wages dried up
WORKERS at Caterpillar factories in the region are facing an uncertain future after the firm announced further job cuts. The US company said it was planning to make 5,000 cuts worldwide following 15,000 that have already been made. A spokesman
PREMIER high street retailer House of Fraser is to cut opening hours at two of its North-East stores. The stores in Darlington, left, and Middlesbrough will open half-an-hour later. The Middlesbrough store will also close an hour earlier on Thursday
ADMINISTRATORS should be legally bound to let Jobcentre Plus staff into firms where there are planned redundancies, a North-East MP said. Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson said administrators at several companies in the region would not let the centre
It’s widely acknowledged that the internet, email and the mobile phone have killed off the skill of conversation, but they have their uses too – especially when you need to announce bad news. MODERN communications are great – especially for
Interested In Playing Basketball? Middlesbrough Lions are looking to develop the next stars of the future and if you would like to play basketball, whatever your standard, there is a session for you. The sessions are fun and you will be taught everything
SUCH has been these columns’ watchword for almost a quarter of a century, though “many days” may more usually become seven. Translated, it means that one thing leads to another – and we have many friends in knead. In Middleton-in-Teesdale Co-op
HAVING spent a few nights on the fells over the past 30 years I was somewhat concerned to read your account – “Fell walker survives two nights in blizzard” (Echo, Jan 21) – of Tom Miles’ adventures in the North Pennines on Sunday and Monday, January
WE welcome the Government’s call for universities to help their regions through the credit crisis as outlined in your report, “Universities told to help during economic crisis” (Echo, Jan 23). Here at Newcastle University, we recently launched
I ALSO deplore Joe Welthorpe’s opinion about the miners (HAS, Jan 13), but it was not Margaret Thatcher who destroyed the coal industry. Red Arthur Scargill’s sole purpose was to create a communist state and he used the miners to try to achieve
HAS Mrs AE Carr (HAS, Jan 19) asked herself just why the people of Gaza elected Hamas with a large majority? Hamas had long run hospitals and schools and was, unlike its predecessors, not corrupt. Hamas is a political party with a small military
Following the news that a woman has given birth to octuplets in the US, Julia Breen speaks to a mother of quadruplets about the delights – and the downsides – of multiple births. THERESA MOSS-CARBERT watched the images flickering on the black screen
SLAVERY in the 21st Century. Temporary workers, treated abominably, used and discarded by so-called family-orientated factories of the North-East. Forced to do overtime; if you don’t, the commitment is not there and you face dismissal; don’t complain
I LISTENED intently to the inauguration speech of the new US President, Barack Obama. It was largely an idealistic plea to the people of America to remember the promises on which their country was founded and to face the future with hope and determination
WE all agree, I trust, that our planet faces a greater crisis than the credit crunch. Depleting resources to satisfy an expanding population with everrising expectations. The planet will survive, whatever happens. But we all wish to save it as our
PETER MANDELSON had three months to come up with a meaningful package of measures to help the British car industry. His response, published yesterday, looks pathetically inadequate compared to the efforts of other European countries and the
A LOCAL MP has voiced concern over the rising number of people declared bankrupt nationally over the last ten years. Anne McIntosh, the Conservative Vale of York MP, has raised the issue after obtaining figures showing the alarming trend. Her figures
THREE people died and a fourth was seriously injured after a two-vehicle crash on a north road. A silver Citroen Saxo collided with a white Skoda Felicia on the A661, near Stokeld Park, near Spofforth, North Yorkshire, last night. The Saxo, which was
Tottenham Hotspur 3 Stoke City 1 TOTTENHAM recorded their first Barclays Premier League victory in more than a month by defeating Stoke with a burst of first-half goals at White Hart Lane. The win for Harry Redknapp’s team was built on strikes
EMILE HESKEY paid off the first instalment of his £3.5m transfer fee with a 20thminute debut goal that took Aston Villa up to third in the Premier League with their latest smash-and-grab success at Fratton Park. Portsmouth slipped deeper into
West Brom 0 Manchester United 5 MANCHESTER United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar and his defenders made Barclays Premier League history as Sir Alex Ferguson’s side crushed 10-man West Brom at The Hawthorns to move three points clear at the top.
ALMOST 100 workers at a North-East distribution centre are facing redundancy, it emerged last night. Some staff were in tears as they were told that DHL proposed making 91 job cuts at the distribution centre in Darlington. The economic downturn
A NORTH-EAST man has died while diving at a lake. The 36-year-old, who has not been named, is believed to have been diving with his father when he got into difficulties at Stoney Cove, Leicestershire on Saturday afternoon. A rescue team was called
THE boss of a major motorsport organisation has described a High Court decision to award compensation to residents living next to a North- East race track as a “travesty of justice”. Croft Circuit faces a bill of up to £850,000 in compensation
A NEW nuclear power station is unlikely to be built in the region for at least 20 years, it emerged yesterday – dashing hopes of a jobs bonanza. As expected, EDF Energy announced it was nominating the site of Harlepool’s existing nuclear plant
POLICE hunting ram-raiders have released pictures of the stolen vehicles used to cause a trail of destruction. The culprits failed in their attempts to steal from cashpoints at a supermarket and a family pub near Bishop Auckland in the early
AN airgun attack on a cat has been condemned as “barbaric” by an animal rights officer. RSPCA inspector Garry Palmer is hoping to track down the two men who are believed to have been responsible for the attack on the animal. He is also trying
A FORMER council official used her knowledge of grant applications to make a claim from the National Lottery for a nursery that did not exist. Hilda Philomena Butler used thousands of pounds from the New Opportunities Fund to meet household bills
PLAYER is starting to pay his way thanks to a win at Catterick a month ago and he can go in again at Newcastle. Following an encouraging reappearance at Carlisle in November, the Apple Tree gelding got off the mark with a nine-length call over
FERDY MURPHY has hit out at the British Horseracing Authority after being handed a £9,500 fine following a disciplinary panel hearing. Murphy described the panel as ‘‘headless chickens’’ after being penalised over the running and riding of Mansonn
CAPTAIN Andrew Strauss hit a hundred in his first match in permanent charge as England thrashed a St Kitts & Nevis XI by 217 runs at Warner Park. It extended the feelgood theme of a day which began with the results of an MRI scan on key all-rounder
GARETH SOUTHGATE will make a formal approach for James Harper within the next 48 hours after Reading indicated a willingness to sell the midfielder. Having missed out on Ben Watson when the England Under-21 international joined Wigan on Monday
Hartlepool United 2 Carlisle United 2 DIFFERENT manager, same scenario for Hartlepool United. Their season has been marked by comebacks galore under Danny Wilson, and the same thing continued last night under Chris Turner. Pools were two down
Darlington 1 Rotherham 0 DANNY Carlton’s first half goal saw Darlington emerge victorious from a battling encounter, in which Robin Hulbert was sent off. Referee Karl Evans came under fire from Quakers boss Dave Penney after dismissing Hulbert
Sunderland 1 Fulham 0 RICKY Sbragia has said it would take a bid of £50m for Sunderland to part with Kenwyne Jones. On the day the striker signed a new deal to keep him at the Stadium of Light until 2013 the only statistics of interest to Sunderland
MANCHESTER CITY were last night considering their next move in the pursuit of goalkeeper Shay Given after finding Newcastle in no mood to cave into the demands of the world’s richest club. Despite Given’s determination to leave St James’ Park
RICKY Sbragia last night praised the decision of Sunderland’s owners to back him and refuse Tottenham’s £15m bid to sign striker Kenwyne Jones. And the Sunderland hierarchy will continue to support the Black Cats boss in the transfer market with
These words, written by Anne Frank during the Second World War, are being used to encourage today’s young people to fight prejudice and reduce hatred in the region. Catherine Priestley reports. THE story of the young Jewish schoolgirl, Anne Frank,
New ground was broken on the Headline Game this morning when I had a point deducted for accusing TFM radio presenter Graham Mack of doing an impression of a cow. The story was about scientists at Newcastle University claiming that giving cows
COWS that are given a name produce significantly more milk than those without, according to research carried out by North-East scientists. Drs Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson, of Newcastle University, have shown that by giving a cow a name
A RAID on a rural post office could be linked to other similar robberies in the past two months, police said last night. Two masked raiders armed with a shotgun burst in to Elwick Village Shop and Post Office, near Hartlepool, at about 5.15pm
AN actor in the popular TV drama Heartbeat was airlifted to hospital yesterday after he was hit by a runaway vintage tractor. The Sixties blue Ford tractor careered down an embankment during filming and crashed into two trees before rolling over
AN MP has used Holocaust Memorial Day to call on her constituents to stand up to hatred in the present day. Roberta Blackman-Woods, the MP for Durham City, showed her commitment to the day by signing a Book of Commitment in the House of Commons, pledging
Vincent Frank, may have been more of an unfamiliar name than a household one until now, but that’s changing at a rapid pace. Frank has been working with the mighty Stuart Price on an EP of the most inspiring pop we have heard in years. He has been supporting
LIFEBOATS were alerted tonight after a woman threatened to drown herself. The woman, believed to be 32 years-old, telephoned home to say she that had just got off a bus in Redcar and was going to kill herself by walking into the sea. The woman's family
A SCOOTER rider is in a serious condition in hospital after he hit a parked lorry. The accident happened on Macklin Avenue, Stockton, near to the Beaumont Park junction, at 9pm tonight. The rider was taken to James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough
