Police used golf buggies to round up a group of antisocial youths

A police chief commandeered golf buggies to round up a gang of suspected teenage tearaways after a dramatic chase - minutes after launching a campaign aimed at cracking down on criminal damage.

The nine youths who were suspected of barricading the Sustrans cycle way in Stanley, County Durham, with broken branches, were detained on a golf course after officers waded through a river to flush them out of their hiding places in woodland.

Read more: How cowhouses were used to milk the vote in Northallerton

With no easy way to reach the rounded-up fugitives, Superintendent Kerrin Smith and Sergeant Dave Clarke were given quick lessons in operating the club's golf buggies, before shepherding the youngsters to waiting patrol cars.

Supt Smith, along with a contingent of police officers, neighbourhood wardens and PCSO's sprang into action after launching Durham Police's Respect Your Street campaign.

They received reports of youths throwing items from a bridge at passers-by.

The officers immediately set off in pursuit, with neighbourhood warden Paul Rutherford hot on their heels.

For more exclusive nostalgia, subscribe to The Northern Echo for just £5 for five months

Sgt Clarke said: "This shows the lengths we will go to track down the kids who cause problems in the community."

A woman who thought she would never ride again after she was dragged underneath a horse and had both legs amputated, was back in the saddle and determined to compete at the Paralympic Games in Rio in 2016.

Doctors told Jane Lishman that she should have died following horrific injuries suffered in September 2006.

But by April 2014, aged 46, and confined to a wheelchair, she was winning competitions against able-bodied riders and had her sights set on securing a place in the GB Para Dressage team.

Read next:

• Remembering the floating nightclubs that moored in this North East town
• Hopes rise over proposal to extend ancient cemetery so burials can continue
• How the last bank in Barney came into being 150 years ago

She had been worming a horse when a rope she was using rode up between her legs, spooking the horse, which broke into a run and dragged her underneath it around a field, while the rope cut deeper into her groin.

She spent a month in a coma and four months being treated in hospital. As well as a collapsed lung, she contracted a soil infection which resulted in the amputation of both her legs.

"At the end of the day I sort of died, " said Miss Lishman. "I should have died. A doctor told me I should have died, so this is a second chance."