POLICE admitted their initial response to concerns about two boys plotting a massacre at their school was not good enough, on May 25, 2018.

The pair were found guilty of conspiracy to murder fellow students and teachers at their school in Northallerton, on May 24, 2018.

During the three-week trial at Leeds Crown Court it emerged that the boys were not arrested until a month after the younger teenager first confessed the plan to a teacher.

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Assistant chief constable Phil Cain said: “We fully accept that standards of investigation and our initial responses, to some of the incidents, did not meet those standards that are expected of us and what we strive to deliver.

“A senior officer has since reviewed the issues and addressed these with a number of officers and staff.”

The boys, who were 14 at the time of the offences, were said to have “hero-worshipped” the perpetrators of the 1999 US Columbine school massacre, and prepared a “hit list” of people they wanted dead, including those who had supposedly bullied or wronged them.

Two teenagers from County Durham who were wounded in the Manchester Arena terror attack were set to return to the city to join fellow survivors in remembering those who lost their lives, in May 2018.

Newton Aycliffe schoolgirls Millie Robson and Laura Anderson were among the thousands of fans leaving the venue at the end of the Ariana Grande performance to be caught up in the atrocity.

Both suffered shrapnel wounds and underwent surgery, and 12 months down the line they continued to live with the mental and emotional effects of the blast.

In a show of solidarity, the girls were bravely travelling back to the city for an invitation-only memorial service at Manchester Cathedral to mark the first anniversary of the atrocity.

A major investigation was under way after a man suspected of brandishing a handgun in a town centre was shot by armed police, on May 25, 2018.

The 23-year-old was taken to the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, with a gunshot wound to the arm following the shooting in Bishop Auckland on the morning of May 24, 2018.

He was later released from hospital and arrested.

A police spokesman said: “A 23-year-old local man has been arrested and is being held at Darlington Police Station for questioning.”

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Police were called at 10.46am to reports that a man had been seen with a gun in the Cockton Hill area of Bishop Auckland.

One witness said the suspect had entered Cockton Hill Working Men’s Club and ordered a double whisky, but when he was told the bar was closed, he left and went to an off licence nearby before getting into a taxi.

A number of police vehicles brought a taxi minibus to a stop just a mile away in Etherley Dene, and, after a stand-off with firearms officers, the suspect was shot through the window of the vehicle.