A man from the North-East has been convicted of murdering the couple who adopted him as a child.

David Weightman was only three-months-old when Pam and Bill Weightman adopted him.

The couple emigrated from Birtley, near Chester-le-Street, to Australia, and built new lives in a suburb of Sydney.

Nearly six years ago, they were found dead in their wrecked car at the bottom of a 60ft ravine.

Initially, police thought the couple had deliberately run their car off the road in a suicide pact. A coroner later ruled a freak accident was to blame. But after pressure from his mother, Pam's, family, police re-opened their investigation and charged Weightman, 25, with murder.

He denied killing his mother and father, Bill, and was due to stand trial at the Supreme Court in Sydney on Monday, but he changed his plea to guilty after the murder charges were put to him in court.

Pam's sister, Gateshead-born Meg Urwin, 53, who now lives in Sydney, said: "We have been fighting for justice for nearly six years and it has been very traumatic.

"We have still not absorbed the fact that he has pleaded guilty."

Pam grew up in Low Fell, Gateshead, and her family still live here.

Her sisters, Mary Scott, 52, and Jeanne Vaughan, 43, and brothers Paul, 46, and David Vaughan, 41, are still trying to come to terms with her death.

Paul, a mechanic, said: "The circumstances of their death did not ring true.

"Bill was not wearing a seat belt but we know that he never pulled away, even for a few yards, without wearing a belt - and never in a million years would they think about suicide.

"After they died, David showed no emotion at all. He was blank and would not look us in the eye."