TWO of the three men cleared of aiding the July 7 bombers today, were brought up in the North-East.

Mohammed Shakil and Sadeer Saleem, lived in Middlesbrough and went to school on Teesside.

The pair, along with Waheed Ali, were today cleared of helping the July 7 bombers plan their attacks by carrying out a reconnaissance mission in London.

However, Shakil and Ali, were convicted of a second charge of conspiracy to attend a place for terrorist training.

The three men were being re-tried at Kingston Crown Court after an earlier jury failed to reach verdicts, were accused of visiting the London Eye, the Natural History Museum and the London Aquarium while pinpointing potential targets seven months before the 2005 atrocity.

But the jury found the trio, all now from Beeston, Leeds, not guilty of conspiring with the four bombers and others unknown to cause explosions between November 17, 2004 and July 8, 2005, following the three-month long re-trial.

Ali, 25, Saleem, 28, and Shakil, 32, were the first people to face charges in connection with the attacks, which killed 52 people and injured up to a thousand more.

Suicide bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan, Shezhad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay detonated rucksack devices packed with explosives on three tube trains and a bus.

The trial heard that the three defendants travelled from Leeds to London on December 16 2004 with Hussain, who went on to detonate his bomb on the No 30 bus in Tavistock Square, claiming 13 lives.

There they met Jermaine Lindsay, who killed 26 people on a Piccadilly Line underground train.

The prosecution alleged they conducted a ‘‘hostile reconnaissance’’ of potential targets during a two-day visit, claiming it was ‘‘an important first step in what was, by then, a settled plan to cause explosions in the UK’’.

Detailed ‘‘cell site analysis’’ of mobile phone use, including calls to the London Tourist Board and various attractions, allowed the group’s movements across London to be mapped.

The three defendants admitted making the visit but claimed it was an entirely innocent social outing and the purpose was for Ali to visit his sister.

They said they had used the opportunity to see some of the capital’s landmarks at the same time.

Shakil was once Sidique Khan's best friend, but they fell out when the bomber accused Shakil of stealing.

Mohammed Shakil was born in 1976 in Mirpur, Kashmir and contracted polio as a baby.

At the age of four, he moved with his family to Middlesbrough where his father began working for British Steel.

When the plant closed, the family moved to Beeston, Leeds in 1988.

Shakil is the eldest of five children - his two sisters are married with children and live in Bradford and Middlesbrough.

His 28-year-old brother works as a pizza chef in a takeaway in Beeston and his second brother, 20-year-old Mohammed Imran is married with children.

At primary school in Middlesbrough, Shakil wore leg braces on his deformed leg, consequence of his polio.

The braces were removed at secondary school and he instead wore a built up shoe. Despite the disability, he developed a keen interest in breakdancing.

Shakil married Sadeer Saleem's step-sister Najma in 1995 and his first child was born shortly afterwards.

  He first met bomber Mohammed Siddique Khan when they worked together part-time as youth workers at the Hardy Street Mosque in Beeston in 1996 and the two became 'close friends.'

  In 1997, he left the job as a youth-worker and moved to Luton with his family, taking an IT foundation course at Luton University.

  He worked to fund his studies at a photo-processing factory.

  In 1999, Shakil took a year out of university and went to a terror camp in where he learned how to use firearms.

  Three years later the family returned to Leeds where Shakil started a second course at Huddersfield University in 2000 and his second child was born.

  Immediately after his final exams in 2003, Shakil travelled to Pakistan with Khan and took part in a second training camp.

  He graduated from university later that year and started work in Beeston as a computer software expert.

  His third child was born in September 2004.

  At the end of 2004 Shakil hoped to open a takeaway restaurant with his brother and father.

  He was claiming benefits in February 2005 and began training to be a taxi driver, passing his test in August 2005.

  After police checks, Shakil started work as a taxi driver in October 2005 and worked until his arrest in March 2007.

Sadeer Saleem, 28, was born in Middlesbrough after his parents and grandparents moved from the same village in Mirpur as Shakil's family to the UK.

  He has four brothers and four sisters, including three half-sisters, one of whom Najma, 31, is married to Mohammed Shakil.

  His parents are separated and all his siblings live in Beeston   Saleem left school with two GCSEs and enrolled at Leeds College of Technology to study an IT foundation course, but did not complete the course.

As the verdicts were read out, Ali smiled broadly, Saleem wiped his eyes and Shakil leant forward, mouthing ‘‘thank you’’ to the jury.

After eight days of deliberation, Mr Justice Gross commended jurors for their ‘‘diligence’’ and discharged them from any future service.

Saleem, who was cleared of all charges, said outside Kingston Crown Court he was ‘‘totally innocent’’ and had been prosecuted on the ‘‘flimsiest of evidence’’.

Ali and Shakil will return to court for sentencing at 2pm tomorrow.