A JUDGE told the fraudulent former boss of a North-East hospice that greed caused his criminal behaviour as he jailed him for four years, in June 2018.

Graham Leggatt-Chidgey, who pleaded guilty to a single charge of fraud at Teesside Crown Court, spent thousands on designer clothes, expensive hotels and luxury goods.

The then-63-year-old, from near Barnard Castle, was sacked by Butterwick Hospice in 2017 when concern was raised about his misuse of a corporate credit card.

Read more:

He sat with his head bowed during the sentencing hearing and showed little emotion as he was jailed.

Leggatt-Chidgey, who was chief executive of the charity for more than 20 years, used the credit card to pay for a variety of luxuries, including a stay at the five-star Glenapp Castle Hotel, in Scotland, around the time of his and his wife’s birthdays and wedding anniversary.

The court heard he used the card to spend more than £30,000 on hotels and restaurants, including the £2,284 trip to Glenapp Castle, and £3,739 on trips to the Cambridge Hilton, close to the home of a family member.

More than £20,000 was spent on train and travel costs, and another £24,000 on computers and software.

Tornado prepared to celebrate its tenth birthday with a weekend of special tours from its birthplace of Darlington in 2018.

Tornado became the first mainline steam engine to be built in this country for 50 years when, after 18 years in the making, it was unveiled in steam at the Hopetown works on August 1, 2008.

Since then, it has travelled more than 100,000 miles the length and breadth of Britain, drawing large crowds of steam enthusiasts wherever it goes.

It has appeared on the Top Gear television programme with Jeremy Clarkson and in the movie Paddington 2 with a bear from darkest Peru; it has had a BBC documentary made about it and it has topped the 100mph mark.

Graeme Bunker-James, operations director of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust which was formed in 1990 to build the £3m engine, said “The Trust has always been proud of its hometown of Darlington, and it is a pleasure to celebrate Tornado’s tenth anniversary locally.

"Darlington has such a rich railway heritage, and it is a privilege to be carrying that tradition forward.”

Read next:

If you want to read more great stories, why not subscribe to your Northern Echo? Click here

Finally, an MP said he would write to the mayor of London demanding to know why a £1.5bn contract to build a new generation of underground trains was awarded to a company that has yet to build its factory, ahead of skilled workers and a state-of-the-art facility “ready for business” in the North-East.

Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson expressed disappointment at an announcement from Transport for London confirming Hitachi Rail Europe’s factory in Newton Aycliffe had lost out on its joint bid with Bombardier to design and manufacture 94 trains to run on the London Tube’s Piccadilly line.

Mr Wilson said: “I will be meeting with Hitachi to discuss this further and I will be writing to Sadiq Khan about the awarding of this to a company that doesn’t even have a factory built yet."