AS a piece of police history, the grim catalogue of crime charting the 40-year career of one of the North's top detectives speaks volumes.

The story of retired Chief Superintendent Jack Collinson, who died last weekend, is told in the pile of papers he had given to grandson Andrew Young, who followed him into the police service 16 years ago.

Peppered with milestones in the development of police work, it covers many murders, an MBE, countless commendations, rewarding spells as a village bobby and some innovative ideas which took Jack from constable to head of Durham CID.

The unsolved murder was that of baby Kimberley Jackman, dumped at Billingham Bottoms on January 18, 1968.

One of his arrests is still talked about today. Nightclub boss Angus Sibbet was found shot in a car under the Pesspool Bridge, in South Hetton at 5.30am on January 5, 1967.

Hours later, Jack and his team burst in on Dennis Stafford and Michael Luvaglio, asleep in the Peterlee flat of Stafford's glamorous girlfriend, singer Selina Jones.

The "fruit machine murder" as it came to be known was probably the region's first big gangland killing.

Stafford and Luvaglio were convicted of murder, although Stafford, who lives in Stanhope Castle, is fighting years later for his case to be reviewed.

Jack, 83, who was born in Cornsay Colliery, and went to school with Angela Rippon's father, Mattie, joined the police in 1938.

He started and ended his career at Bishop Auckland, serving in Hunwick, where he met and married his wife Sally, then at Witton Park, Barnard Castle and Stockton before promotion to detective sergeant took him to Consett.

He went back into uniform for the last two years of his career and retired in 1977 as head of Bishop Auckland police.

He was a detective inspector by the time he arrived in Darlington, where the brutal murder of an elderly widow in June 1958 led to a macabre milestone in his career.

Brian Chandler, a 20-year-old squaddie serving at Catterick Camp, robbed 83-year-old widow Martha Ann Dodd and battered her to death with a hammer in her flat, in Victoria Road.

Six years before the abolition of the death penalty, Jack was present when Chandler, from Middlesbrough, earned his place in history as the last man to be hanged in Durham Prison.

Respected as firm but fair by colleagues and villains alike, Jack, who lived in Bishop Auckland, relied on basic detection methods and meticulous attention to detail.

Andrew said: "He cared for the victims and looked after them behind the scenes - but he could also show kindness to the villains' families.

"He was a blunt old-fashioned policeman's policeman with an unblemished record. Of the murders he investigated as a senior detective, only one remains unofficially unsolved, although he was sure he knew who had committed the crime."

Jack's funeral service is at Hunwick today. Among the mourners will be his widow, Sally, and Andrew's parents, Bernice and Jim Young, both former police officers