A DISTINGUISHED former editor of The Northern Echo returned to his old stomping ground today.

Harold Evans visited the Darlington headquarters of the regional morning newspaper of the year.

Earlier in the day, he collected a degree of Doctors Letters at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough.

Mr Evans carried on The Northern Echo's campaigning tradition in the 1960s, winning a posthumous pardon for Timothy Evans, who had been wrongly hanged in 1950 for strangling his young baby daughter.

There were also campaigns against inflammable nightwear following a spate of accidents in which women were horribly burned, a campaign for better roads and campaigns against industrial pollution on Teesside.

It wasn't long before Mr Evans' skills as a editor came to the attention of the national newspapers and the lure of Fleet Street finally proved too tempting.

He went on to edit The Sunday Times and The Times before moving to America with his wife Tina Brown, who edits Talk Magazine.

He is now editorial director and vice-chairman of the New York Daily News, as well as being a book writer and sought-after speaker.

Awarded a gold medal from the Institute of Journalists in 1979, he won the title of Editor of the Year, twice, in 1975 and 1982.