23/02/2017 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Good evening. for the news where you are.

A man who made almost ?1 million from operating two illegal

waste tips in County Durham has been ordered by a judge to pay back

Raymond Shepherd has already received an 18-month prison

sentence, and is now living on benefits.

Today, he was at Teesside Crown Court for a

This warehouse was one of the two waste sites in Darlington where

Raymond Shepherd ran his illegal business.

Here, household waste was piled high.

He had no licence and no regard for health and safety.

Today Teesside Crown Court heard how his

operation had earned him almost ?1 million.

A profit made by charging customers to remove their waste and

He was making a lot of money from this.

That meant that he disregarded the law.

He disregarded the communities that were around his site

Despite earning ?1 million from his illegal business,

Raymond Shepherd was today ordered to pay back just ?14,000.

After serving a prison sentence, the court

heard he was now living on benefits and had no hidden assets.

If his financial situation changes,

the million he made me still have to be paid in full.

Outside court, Mr Shepherd insisted he has done

?14,000 is neither here nor there but it is about

being found guilty when I have done nothing wrong.

When the local authority prosecuted, they

We hope the judgment sends out the message that

waste crime does not pay.

Mr Shepherd now has a debt for life, if he makes any money, we will

Raymond Shepherd now has three months to pay back his proceeds of

crime or face a further spell in prison.

A coroner has ruled that a Darlington soldier who was suffering

Last October, at the age of 26 he hanged himself.

His family say he was suffering from PTSD and they are

now raising money to help other soldiers.

His stepfather said today he was lovely, determined and loyal.

The fiance of the Northumberland-born children's

author Helen Bailey has been jailed for a minimum of

Her body was found in a cesspit at the home

The court was told 56-year-old Ian Stewart spent weeks

poisoning her with prescription sedatives, before smothering her

Voting has closed in the Copeland by-election, in West Cumbria.

The election was called after the resignation

Let's cross live to Whitehaven sports centre where the count

This is a Labour seat, how important to them

The majority that was bequeathed to Labour was 2500. Traditionally, it

is not lost to governing parties. It is a indication of the perilous

state of labour. The Conservatives have not helped this seat since the

1930s, and this big concern. Voters want to see an MP to put forward the

issues highlighted. The local hospital being moved. The

uncertainty about nuclear jobs. The nuclear power station this supposed

to come here but there is uncertainty. And the rail network,

my colleagues from all over Britain have had to endure problems tonight.

Which party is looking happiest so far? We have got the first few

ballots boxes being verified and then will be counted properly. In a

couple of hours' time. Candidates keeping its cost that their chests

at the moment. Not looking confident or despondent. We could have a close

result. The declaration time is usually between three and 4am.

It's ten years today since the Grayrigg rail crash,

when a Virgin Trains Pendolino came off the West Coast Mainline

in Cumbria, killing one person and injuring dozens more.

To mark the anniversary, three people who were

connected with the crash - the driver, the track

maintenance manager, and the son of the woman who died -

have all returned to the place where it happened

It was one of the most shocking disasters in Cumbria's history.

The twisted wreckage of the train became one

The investigation revealed that it was caused by points failure.

The man whose job it was to inspect them had been openly critical

of the state of the tracks for 18 months.

Ironically, it was he who failed to inspect them just five

days before the crash, although he was

The impact of the accident on his life is clear to see.

This is my first time back here in the ten

years since the accident, the night of the crash.

This is where the rear of the train was.

I walked up here and looked down the bank,

I vividly remember the helicopters circling

above and landing in the field, picking injured people.

You can't really imagine anything like it.

Just to stand here, you have got a 300-odd tonne train on its side

The driver of the train, Iain Black, was seriously injured and given

For him, keeping the memory of the crash alive is his way

When I was in the field, I was just at the scene

but now I can look down, I can take the whole aspect

of where the train came off, where I ended up.

I do not want to forget about it, so coming here today is again,

helping me remember what happened to me and at the same time

Although 30 people were seriously hurt, there was only one fatality.

One too many, but this surprised some people and was thought to be

due to the structural integrity of the pendelino train.

The woman who died was 84-year-old Margaret Masson, and today,

her son George said he did not believe all

No matter what the investigations say.

If they recommend something, whether they have implemented

the changes that they were going to do it is pretty doubtful.

Network Rail shouldn't be running the track.

They have got the manpower, but they will not spend

They say they have, but I have not seen it.

Network Rail was fined over ?4 million for failing

The people affected have got on with their lives,

but a decade on, it is clear the crash still casts a shadow.

Well, our region escaped the worst of Storm Doris today,

but many rail services were cancelled or restricted, and

One group of local schoolchildren from Newcastle High School for Girls

were on their way back from a trip to Iceland on board

Icelandair Flight F1440, which tried to land at Manchester Airport

It then tried to land at Liverpool before declaring a fuel emergency

and returning to Manchester, where it finally made

Everyone around us was, like, being sick and fainting and that.

I literally felt I was going to die at one point.

"Mum, I don't know what's going to happen."

When you finally landed, how did it feel?

They started crying because they were so excited

because everyone thought, like, something bad

Most of us escaped the worst, even though Doris came

We were lucky that the eye of the storm came right across us. Some

parts of Cumbria got guts of over 60 mph. Parts of the North East, 50

mph. But the weather stayed north and south of our region. The

pressure gradually pulled away through the afternoon, we drew down

those strong northerly winds through the afternoon. Generally, we have

got away with not too bad and experience from this storm. The

storm has pretty much either way through the rest of this evening and

overnight the winter fading, the shallowest easing off. Temperatures

overnight will be dropping down to around two or three degrees. A touch

of frost in places, ice possibly a problem on an surfaces. Friday, much

better. Blue skies for many of us. Staying dry. Some clouding Cumbria

later on in the day. It will feel like a much better day with

temperatures up to seven or 8 degrees. I had chillier than it has

been. Into Saturday, wetter. Parts of Cumbria, County Durham and

western part of Northumberland, heady and persistent rain. Parts of

the North East thing dry. Temperatures around ten or 11

degrees. Quite blustery. Into Sunday, further wet and windy

weather. Here is the outlook for tomorrow. With

be much milder. I will leave you with Thomas Shelter.

Good evening. It was quite a day for some of us. We get these sort of

storms every couple of years also. Difficult to give an exact number,

but it was certainly a nasty one. It's now moving into Holland,

Germany, south of Denmark, and it continues to blow itself out. The

winds around coasts were not particularly spectacular, but