Stories for 21 November 2007
The Northern Echo News
Appeal after young driver killed in crash
A YOUNG motorist was killed when his car left a rain-lashed road and struck a tree at rush hour last night. more...
Coroner's son killed in crash
THE SON of the Durham coroner died hours after his car left a rain-lashed road and struck a tree, last night. more...
Tanker rolls over on busy road
A TANKER rolled over and blocked a major Teesside industrial link route today. more...
Teen appears charged with brother's murder
A TEENAGER has appeared in court charged with murdering his brother. more...
Hotelier abused guest's daughter - claim
Mystery over former Quakers' boss
MYSTERY surrounds the future of a North-East football club's youth development officer. more...
British man and son swept to their deaths
A BRITISH man and his five-year-old son drowned today after being swept out to sea in Spain, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said. more...
BREAKING NEWS: Soldiers killed in Iraq chopper crash
TWO British military personnel were killed when their RAF Puma helicopter crashed in Iraq, the Ministry of Defence said today. more...
Rock rescue bid may save hundreds of jobs
THE Northern Rock name and potentially hundreds of North-East jobs could be saved through new takeover proposals for the troubled Newcastle lender revealed yesterday. US private equity firm JC Flowers confirmed it submitted its offer for Northern Rock to the company's board yesterday morning, which would see it trading the business as a going concern. It is the only bidder so far to make an offer for the entire business. As part of its proposals, JC Flowers said it would privatise the firm and invest up to £1bn in the business - and would retain the Northern Rock name for the mortgage lending side of the company. It did not comment on the lender's branch structure, although financial analysts told The Northern Echo it would make "good business sense" to have facilities for customer deposits in place, potentially safeguarding hundreds of jobs. Anthony Platts, divisional director of investment manager Wise Speke's Teesside office, said: "While JC Flowers has not made its intentions clear yet, from a business point of view it makes sense to maintain a deposit structure. "It is probably the situation that JC Flowers cannot really comment in detail on that side of the business as yet, as it would be unfair on the staff of Northern Rock to do so. "However, if we are looking at this as a business model, it makes sense to have a deposit business in place." JC Flowers - the second group to set out firm proposals for Northern Rock after Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group-led consortium did so last month - made its bid only hours after under-fire Chancellor Alistair Darling said he believed a buyer could still be found, to avoid the company being nationalised. Despite the retention of the established Northern Rock name being a popular move - after Virgin said it would rebrand the lender into its Virgin Money business - shareholder groups said they feared losing out.JC Flowers signalled its intent to pay only a "nominal" amount for shares, which dipped to another all-time low yesterday, closing down another seven per cent at 97p. At one point, they plummeted to 60p. Roger Lawson, chairman of Northern Rock Shareholders Action Group, said: "Clearly, on this basis we would not recommend it to shareholders - we would campaign against it."It was also said that JC Flowers would look to repay £15bn of the estimated £24bn Northern Rock has borrowed so far from the Bank of England, prompting fears that the taxpayer would have to foot the bill beyond that, possibly for the next three years. JC Flowers announced last month it had lined up former Marks and Spencer chairman Paul Myners to be the chairman of the company, and former Alliance and Leicester chief executive Richard Pym, who would become Northern Rock's interim chief executive.Neither Northern Rock, the Treasury or JC Flowers would comment further last night, but Sir Richard Branson called for a quick decision on the future of the beleaguered group. "If Northern Rock's going to be rescued, it needs to be rescued quickly," he said. Fellow US private equity firm Cerberus and investment group Olivant are known to be among other interested parties. more...
Riddle over future of ex-football club boss
MYSTERY surrounded the future of a North-East football club's youth development officer last night.Rumours on Darlington Football Club's internet message board yesterday suggested that Mick Tait - a former manager of the club - had been suspended or had left after five years at the club.But neither Mr Tait nor the club would confirm or deny the rumour last night.Mr Tait, one-time manager of the Quakers and youth development officer since 2003, told The Northern Echo: "I am not allowed to say anything. You will have to speak to the club."A spokesman for Darlington Football Club said: "It would not be right for us to comment on confidential internal personnel matters while due process is being followed."Mr Tait played for Darlington from 1990 to 1994 during his long playing career.He later returned to the club in 2002 as manager, initially on a caretaker basis. His reign lasted a little over 12 months, during which time the club moved from its former Feethams ground to the Darlington Arena.Scott Thornberry, a fan who runs an unofficial website, said last night: "He has been at the club for a few years. He was manager under very difficult circumstances when we moved to our new stadium and things were going on behind the scenes."If it is true and he has gone, then I wish him good luck and hope he finds somewhere else."Mr Tait, 51, had a long playing career which started at Oxford United in 1974. During his 22-year career he played a total of 760 league games, a figure which has been beaten by only 12 other players in the history of the Football League.His career also included two spells with Darlington's rivals Hartlepool United. He became player-manager of Hartlepool in 1996 and hung up his boots two years later, before he was sacked in 1999.After he was replaced as Darlington manager in 2003 by David Hodgson, he returned as youth development officer.It is a role he has filled in the four years since. He also helped Martin Gray and Neil Maddison with managerial duties last year when Mr Hodgson left the club, before Dave Penney was appointed manager. more...
Anglo-Saxon gold jewellery is uncovered at burial site
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered a 1,400-year-old burial ground filled with gold jewellery and ancient artifacts at a secret location in the North-East, it was revealed last night.Experts hailed the find as one of the best examples of an Anglo-Saxon burial ground ever uncovered - and may even have been the final resting place of a king or queen.The 109-grave cemetery was discovered on land in Loftus, east Cleveland.It is arranged in a rectangular pattern and dates from the middle of the 7th Century.The cemetery, bed burial and high status objects are considered to all indicate the people buried must have connections with Anglo-Saxon royalty.The finds were unveiled at Kirkleatham Museum, in Redcar, east Cleveland, yesterday, where it is hoped they will eventually go on permanent display.An aerial photograph, showing evidence of an Iron Age site, gave archaeologist Steve Sherlock the first clues to the buried treasure.His finds include gold and silver brooches that may have connections with the kings of Northumbria.The excavations, which began in 2005 and continued under Mr Sherlock's supervision with help from Tees Archaeology and local volunteers, working four to six weeks every summer, have covered an area the size of half a football pitch.Mr Sherlock said: "I knew the significance of the site straight away after being involved in excavating an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Norton, but I couldn't believe it - you don't find sites like this twice in your career."And it's grown each year. The first year we found 30 graves, but I didn't expect to find any more. Then last year, we found another 13 and this year has been even more spectacular, finding the fantastic plan of the site, actually showing a social order."While human bone does not survive because of the acidic soils, a range of high status jewellery was found, including glass beads, pottery, iron knives and belt buckles. Five of the graves had gold and silver brooches and a further burial had a seax - a type of Anglo-Saxon knife."One burial had been placed upon a bed with the lady dressed wearing three gold brooches, one of which is unparalleled in Anglo-Saxon England. Quite who this person was we may never know, but we can say she was alive at the time St Hilda was establishing the monastery at Whitby."The Teesside coroner needs to conduct an inquest to confirm the treasure definition and the finds will then be valued by a panel of experts from the British Museum.Robin Daniels, of Tees Archaeology, said: "It is the most dramatic find of Anglo Saxon material for generations."I was stunned - it is not the kind of site you expect to find in this part of the world. There is nothing to indicate that we should have a royal cemetery near Loftus."Traditionally, Anglo-Saxon royalty were always buried in the South of England and it is thought the royals buried at the Loftus site could be linked to the Kentish Princess Ethelburga, who travelled north to marry Edwin, King of Northumbria.Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council's cabinet member for culture, leisure and tourism, Councillor Sheelagh Clarke, said: "It is a great thrill for all of us - for everyone who has been involved with it. It was so poignant to see the children's and babies' graves. It brought home how hard life was for people in that day in age. It is quite incredible how they came to be here, but that is a million dollar question - how did a royal family come to be in Loftus? more...
Inmate tells of staff unrest at jail where young prisoner died
A WOMAN dubbed the Cocaine Queen of the Caribbean when she was jailed for 24 years over a major drug smuggling operation, has told an inquest how a fellow prisoner who hanged herself was a self-harmer.Julie Patterson, 51, received one of the largest sentences given to a woman trafficker in 2002 for her part in an attempt to import drugs worth up to £100m into the country.Patterson was one of six Category A prisoners on I Wing, in Durham Jail, in August 2005, when convicted murderer Louise Giles, 20, from Leeds, was found dead in her cell with a ligature around her neck.The wing was in the process of being closed and prisoners and staff moved elsewhere.Ms Patterson described Ms Giles - a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, who was on medication - as a "young, blonde small girl who was quite bubbly and had a problem with serious self-harming".On one occasion, Giles burnt her leg with a lighter, causing a bad wound, but Patterson told the hearing it was difficult to say if she was a serious suicide risk, as many women prisoners harmed themselves.She said the wing was in limbo and the atmosphere between staff and inmates was bad, and relationships between them had broken down."The staff didn't have much time for any of us. They were discontent where they were, so they didn't bring to work a positive thing," she said.Patterson said in a statement to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman that many prison officers were new and inexperienced and "sat around doing Sudoku, crosswords and reading Take a Break", adding that there was not much for them to do "apart from what we needed or asked for".She also said in her statement that Ms Giles, who often used her buzzer to summon officers through the night, may have been "pushed over the edge" by not having any tobacco, and an officer slamming her cell door. Another prisoner, Deborah Taylor, rejected a suggestion by Prison Service barrister Samantha Leek that it was un-true there was no interaction between inmates and staff.Taylor, who had not believed at the time that Giles would kill herself, also said staff "used to take the mick" out of her and nicknamed her "smelly" because of her poor personal hygiene.The hearing, before a jury, continues today. more...
Lost
POLICE were investigating the Government's £160m child benefit centre last night after computer discs containing the personal details of 25 million people disappeared somewhere between the North-East and London.Teams of police worked long into the night at the child benefit complex, at the Emerson House complex, Washington, Wearside, close to the A1M.About a dozen uniformed officers, wearing protective blue gloves, could be seen on the top floor of the modern, three-storey office complex searching desks and cabinets and looking through folders and files.Unconfirmed reports said police used crowbars to open locked drawers.Chancellor Alistair Darling said the missing discs held sensitive personal data on 25 million people and 7.25 million families.The details included names, addresses, dates of birth, child benefit numbers, National Insurance numbers and bank and building society account details.Hours earlier, Paul Gray, chairman of her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which lost the discs containing the Government's entire child benefit database, had resigned.Information about senior politicians, police officers and leading industrialists will be on the discs, which contain the records of nearly half the UK's 60.5 million population.MPs gasped as Mr Darling revealed the scale of the loss in an emergency statement to the Commons.The Metropolitan Police are leading the hunt for the two password-protected discs and trying to discover how they disappeared in transit between benefit headquarters, in Washington, and the National Audit Office (NAO), in London. Mr Darling said they should not have been sent in the first place, as a junior official breached all Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs standing procedures by transferring them using courier company TNT.The Chancellor said there was no evidence they had fallen into criminal hands and said the public would be protected against any fraud by the Banking Code.He told MPs: "The missing information contains details of all child benefit recipients - records for 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families."These records include the recipient and their children's names, addresses and dates of birth."It includes child benefit numbers, National Insurance numbers and, where relevant, bank or building society account details."That means the personal details of nearly every family in the country with a child under 16 have gone missing.Child benefit can be paid up to the age of 20 if the teenagers are studying for A-levels or on an approved training scheme.The HMRC official who sent the CDs did not tell senior officials about the loss because they assumed the package was delayed, the HMRC said.The official believed the package had been held up by the postal strike or the NAO's office move and "hoped that it would turn up" and so kept quiet.Downing Street had no immediate comment on whether Prime Minister Gordon Brown claims child benefit for his two young sons. If so, his personal details are also on the discs.Shadow chancellor George Osborne said: "The Chancellor has serious questions to answer, and faces the huge task of restoring the public's confidence in his department."He will have to demonstrate over the next few weeks that he is capable of doing this."Liberal Democrat acting leader and Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: "The Treasury and its agencies have replaced the Home Office as the department in Government which is most unfit for purpose."It was the Prime Minister who created the dysfunctional organisation and systems which the Chancellor inherited."Where does the buck stop after this catalogue of disasters?"The lost discs are the latest headache for Mr Darling after the Northern Rock banking crisis.The Chancellor told MPs: "I regard this as an extremely serious failure by HMRC in their responsibility to the public."He has ordered an independent inquiry into HMRC security procedures by PricewaterhouseCoopers chairman Kieran Poynter.The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which has oversight of HMRC, is also investigating.A TNT spokesman confirmed the company had a contract to deliver mail for HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions, as well as other Government bodies.He said the company would not be liable for loss of the discs or any resulting fraud.Because the item was not sent by recorded delivery, it could not be established for certain that it was posted, he said."We do not even know for sure if the item entered our system," the spokesman said. "We are all working on that theory, but it cannot be proved one way or the other."The centre in Washington was opened by Mr Darling seven years ago. More than 2,000 people work at the complex which processes child benefit claims for the whole country. more...
Rock talk with possible suitors
NORTH-EAST mortgage lender Northern Rock said today that its advisers had begun talks with a number of interested parties over rescue plans for the business. more...
Asylum seeker faces deportation
Cleared - but no redress for ex-PC
A FALSELY imprisoned former more...
England trail 2-0 in crucial qualifier
ENGLAND'S Euro 2008 hopes are hanging by a thread at half-time in their crucial qualifying game at home to Croatia. more...
EURO 2008 UPDATE: Lifeline for England
ENLGAND were given a lifeline when Frank Lampard pulled a goal back from the penalty spot after 56 minutes. more...
EURO 2008 UPDATE: England back on terms
PETER Crouch brought England back on level terms with a great finish from a David Beckham cross. more...
Famous route's future secured
The future of a popular long distance walk has been secured thanks to a £90,000 scheme to halt erosion. more...
EURO 2008 UPDATE: England behind again
JUST when England looked to be heading to the finals, Croatia struck a hammer blow to go back in front. more...
FINAL SCORE: England 2 Croatia 3
ENGLAND crashed out of Euro 2008 after slipping to defeat in a roller-coaster game at Wembley. more...
Teesside University Awards
Graduates and award-winners more...
North York Moors railway wins again
Knife-wielding robber hunted
A MASKED robber, armed with a knife, threatened a cashier and snatched more than £500 in cash in a determined raid on a County Durham bookmaker's last night. more...
Personal details of 25 million people "lost in post"
POLICE were investigating the Government's £160m child benefit centre last night after computer discs containing the personal details of 25 million people disappeared somewhere between the North-East and London.Teams of police worked long into the night at the child benefit complex, at the Emerson House complex, Washington, Wearside, close to the A1M.About a dozen uniformed officers, wearing protective blue gloves, could be seen on the top floor of the modern, three-storey office complex searching desks and cabinets and looking through folders and files.Unconfirmed reports said police used crowbars to open locked drawers.Chancellor Alistair Darling said the missing discs held sensitive personal data on 25 million people and 7.25 million families.The details included names, addresses, dates of birth, child benefit numbers, National Insurance numbers and bank and building society account details.Hours earlier, Paul Gray, chairman of her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which lost the discs containing the Government's entire child benefit database, had resigned.Information about senior politicians, police officers and leading industrialists will be on the discs, which contain the records of nearly half the UK's 60.5 million population.MPs gasped as Mr Darling revealed the scale of the loss in an emergency statement to the Commons.The Metropolitan Police are leading the hunt for the two password-protected discs and trying to discover how they disappeared in transit between benefit headquarters, in Washington, and the National Audit Office (NAO), in London. Mr Darling said they should not have been sent in the first place, as a junior official breached all Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs standing procedures by transferring them using courier company TNT.The Chancellor said there was no evidence they had fallen into criminal hands and said the public would be protected against any fraud by the Banking Code.He told MPs: "The missing information contains details of all child benefit recipients - records for 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families."These records include the recipient and their children's names, addresses and dates of birth."It includes child benefit numbers, National Insurance numbers and, where relevant, bank or building society account details."That means the personal details of nearly every family in the country with a child under 16 have gone missing.Child benefit can be paid up to the age of 20 if the teenagers are studying for A-levels or on an approved training scheme.The HMRC official who sent the CDs did not tell senior officials about the loss because they assumed the package was delayed, the HMRC said.The official believed the package had been held up by the postal strike or the NAO's office move and "hoped that it would turn up" and so kept quiet.Downing Street had no immediate comment on whether Prime Minister Gordon Brown claims child benefit for his two young sons. If so, his personal details are also on the discs.Shadow chancellor George Osborne said: "The Chancellor has serious questions to answer, and faces the huge task of restoring the public's confidence in his department."He will have to demonstrate over the next few weeks that he is capable of doing this."Liberal Democrat acting leader and Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: "The Treasury and its agencies have replaced the Home Office as the department in Government which is most unfit for purpose."It was the Prime Minister who created the dysfunctional organisation and systems which the Chancellor inherited."Where does the buck stop after this catalogue of disasters?"The lost discs are the latest headache for Mr Darling after the Northern Rock banking crisis.The Chancellor told MPs: "I regard this as an extremely serious failure by HMRC in their responsibility to the public."He has ordered an independent inquiry into HMRC security procedures by PricewaterhouseCoopers chairman Kieran Poynter.The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which has oversight of HMRC, is also investigating.A TNT spokesman confirmed the company had a contract to deliver mail for HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions, as well as other Government bodies.He said the company would not be liable for loss of the discs or any resulting fraud.Because the item was not sent by recorded delivery, it could not be established for certain that it was posted, he said."We do not even know for sure if the item entered our system," the spokesman said. "We are all working on that theory, but it cannot be proved one way or the other."The centre in Washington was opened by Mr Darling seven years ago. More than 2,000 people work at the complex which processes child benefit claims for the whole country. more...
Army officer denies offering to "convert" lesbian
An Army staff sergeant told an employment tribunal that he flatly denied sending a lesbian soldier sexually explicit text messages and telling her he might be able to convert her. more...
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