LOOKING back to the week of May 16 to May 22, ten years ago.

Lawyers acting for a subpostmaster jailed for the murder of his wife revealed new evidence they said made the conviction unsafe, in May 2012.

Robin Garbutt's legal team produced documents at the Court of Appeal which they said cast doubt on the prosecution case that the appellant was a thief.

The Northern Echo:

Financial records for the post office in Melsonby, near Richmond, were never shown to the jury, which in 2011 convicted Garbutt of the murder of his wife, Diana.

Although the information was requested before the trial at Teesside Crown Court, they were only obtained after the 10-2 majority guilty verdict had been returned.

At the trial, prosecutors pointed to post office records for the 15 months before the murder that showed the couple had not returned any cash notes to headquarters, despite apparently keeping unusually large amounts of money in the safe.

However, the new records showed that no notes had been returned since the couple bought the post office in 2004.

Jamie Hill QC, representing Garbutt as he did at the trial, said: "If Mr Garbutt was the thief, the money was there, there was no robber and so he must have killed his wife."

He said it was the defence submission that the post office was run chaotically rather than dishonestly, and added: "If he's not a thief, he's a different man in the eyes of the jury."

In county Durham, nine people were arrested on May 16, 2012 after police raided seven homes in the region.

Up to 100 officers swooped at 6am on houses in Spennymoor, Ferryhill and Bishop Auckland to catch a gang of suspected drug dealers.

The dawn raids followed months of investigative work by specialist officers targeting suspected heroin dealers. It is the 18th operation in County Durham to fall under the umbrella of Operation Nimrod.

Finally, a community was counting the cost of a blaze that destroyed eight shops on Saturday, May 21, 2012.

About 60 firefighters tackled the blaze, which gutted a fish and chip shop, two takeaways, a hairdressing salon, pharmacy, launderette, tattoo parlour and a bookmakers in Durham Lane, Eaglescliffe, near Stockton.

No one was believed to have been in the shops when fire broke out in Figaro's Italian takeaway. The fire was understood to have ruptured a gas main, leading to a small explosion.

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