A review of 2006, January to August

JANUARY

THE year starts with the Liberal-Democrats tearing themselves apart just as they are being viewed as a credible opposition party after successes in last year's General Election.

Chaos is triggered when leader Charles Kennedy confirms one of politics' worst-kept secrets, that he has been battling a drink problem for years.

Amid growing speculation about his competence, he calls a leadership election to resolve the confusion surrounding his position, but the party wants him out immediately and he is forced to resign.

The leadership race descends into farce as revelations about a gay affair in The News of the World force contender Mark Oaten to quit and fellow contender Simon Hughes admits he has lied for years about being gay and is, in fact, bi-sexual.

By the end of the month, 40 per cent of Lib-Dem supporters say they want Charlie Kennedy back. Veteran Menzies Campbell eventually wins the contest.

In a bizarre month for Parliament, Respect MP George Galloway does his best to lose respect by going into the Celebrity Big Brother house. His constituents react furiously as his antics include imitating a cat and wearing fancy dress when he should be representing them. He does not win.

Reminding us how politics should be conducted, MPs pay fond tribute to outspoken and charismatic London MP Tony Banks, who dies at the age of 62 after a stroke.

Education secretary Ruth Kelly comes under intense pressure when it is revealed that her department did not do enough to stop sex offenders working in schools.

One of the cases concerns a North-East teacher convicted in 1980 of indecently assaulting the teenage schoolgirl from Sunderland whom he later married. Despite the conviction, he went on to work at schools in County Durham and South Tyneside. Revelations about his case, and others like it, create intense pressure on Ms Kelly and she announces tougher rules.

A paedophile abducts a six-year-old girl from the bath at her home in Willington Quay, North Tyneside, and sexually assaults her before dumping her in the street. At the end of the year, Peter Voisey, from Blyth, Northumberland, is jailed for at least ten years. Voisey, 35, denies kidnap, rape and sexual assault but is found guilty.

Ariel Sharon, the hard-line Israeli prime minister driving forward the peace process with the Palestinians, suffers a huge stroke and after a series of lifesaving operations it is announced he will never serve as PM again. The Palestinians vote in terrorist group Hamas as their new leaders.

The first "compact" edition of The Northern Echo hit the region's newsagents on Saturday, January 14 - in the paper's 136th year of publication.

The handier-sized Saturday format was an instant hit with readers - with more than 82 per cent giving the compact the thumbs-up in a subsequent poll.

AND FINALLY

A HUMBLE Brussels sprout raises £1,550 for charity. A bidding war on internet site eBay sees the sprout - named Nicholas - raise the cash for Cancer Research. Lee Knight, 18, from Stockton, Teesside, puts the vegetable up for sale.

FEBRUARY

A month in which observers are entitled to ask "how many children must die before we learn how to protect them?"

A report for Newcastle City Council highlights failings in the way social workers handled the case of murdered baby Aaron O'Neil.

Despite warnings from the probation service and the concern of city council staff, little was done to protect the baby from his violent father, Paul O'Neil.

The report comes out after O'Neil is jailed for 22 years by Newcastle Crown Court for murdering his son: when doctors examined the baby, they found 37 visible injuries, including burns, bruises and abrasions.

The court hears how O'Neil, 33, of Banbury Road, Kenton, Newcastle, killed the baby because he was jealous of the attention Aaron received from his mother, Jodie Taylor, who is jailed for three-and-a-half years after admitting child cruelty.

A month in which hard-line Moslem fundementalism comes to the fore again. After a Danish newspaper publishes cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, reprinted in papers across Europe, Muslems protest in huge numbers. Incidents include the burning of Danish embassies in Lebanon and Syria.

Muslim cleric Abu Hamza is jailed for seven years at the Old Bailey after being found guilty of race hate charges. The 47-year-old cleric, who preached at Finsbury Park mosque in London and is known for his hook, is convicted of 11 out of 15 offences.

Former Darlington man Peter Heron learns that the criminal case against him has been dropped. The 70-year-old had been due to stand trial accused of murdering his wife Ann at their Darlington home in 1990 but the Crown Prosecution Service announces there is not enough evidence to sustain a prosecution.

MPs vote to introduce identity cards and ban smoking in enclosed public places, the latter sparking anger among pub and club-goers in the North-East where smoking and drinking is a long-standing tradition.

An armed gang pulls off the biggest robbery in British history, stealing £53m from a security depot in Kent. A number of people are later arrested.

In showbusiness, it is announced that Aussie pop star Kylie Minogue has beaten breast cancer.

Tributes are paid to Tom McGuinness, one of the North-East's most celebrated artists, who captured life in the mines on canvas - and who was busy painting until the day before he died.

And finally

You couldn't make it up as US vice-president Dick Cheney shoots a 78-year-old companion on a hunting trip. The VP accidentally sprays Harry Whittington, 78, with shotgun pellets during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas. What starts out as a relatively light-hearted story with Mr Whittington reported to be recovering well soon turns serious when he is rushed into intensive care with a piece of bullet lodged near his heart. He is later discharged from hospital.

MARCH

ONE of criminal history's biggest mysteries is solved as Sunderland man John Humble admits he was Wearside Jack.

Humble, 50, is jailed for eight years for perverting the course of justice after admitting he sent letters and an audio tape goading police for failing to catch the Yorkshire Ripper in 1979.

Peter Sutcliffe, who had killed ten times when Humble sent his tape, was interviewed by police several times but did not have a Wearside accent so was freed. Sutcliffe was eventually jailed for murdering 13 women.

Hurworth village's secondary school, near Darlington, is saved after an intervention from Darlington MP Alan Milburn and local constituency MP, the Prime Minister Tony Blair. Darlington borough councillors had wanted to merge the school with Eastbourne to form an academy, prompting vehement protests.

Mr Blair finds himself under fire over "secret" loans to the Labour Party from people then nominated for peerages. By the end of the year, a police inquiry is under way into the system used by all parties.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell splits from her husband as questions grow about how much she knew about David Mills' financial links with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. By the end of the year, both men are facing trial on corruption charges.

John Profumo, the central figure in 1963 political sex scandal the Profumo Affair, dies aged 91. In later life he worked for charity.

Climbers Colin Riddiough, 46, Paul Dick, 56, and John Plews, 32, all from east Cleveland, die while climbing in a snowstorm in Spain.

A coroner calls for a public inquiry into non-combat deaths in the Army. Michael Burgess makes his comments at an inquest into teenager Private James Collinson, from Perth, found dead from a gunshot wound at Deepcut Barracks, in Surrey, in 2002, six months after Private Geoff Gray, of Seaham, County Durham, was discovered dead at the same base with gunshot wounds. Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram dismisses suggestions of trainees being bullied to death.

An inquest rules that Red Caps who died at the hands of an Iraqi mob in 2003 were unlawfully killed. The men, who did not have the radio equipment to summon help or enough ammunition, included Lance Corporal Ben Hyde, 23, of North Yorkshire, and Corporals Paul Long, 24, from South Shields, South Tyneside, and Simon Miller, 21, from Washington, Wearside.

Two men fight for their lives after being among six taken desperately ill during a medical drugs trial in London. All survive but at least one requires amputations.

In showbusiness, everyone at the Oscars expects triumph for gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain only to see race relations drama Crash win best film. British highlights include best animated feature for Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Former British rock star Gary Glitter is jailed for three years after a Vietnamese court convicts him of sexually abusing two young girls.

British hostage Norman Kember is released alive with two others after a four-month ordeal in Iraq.

More than a million council workers stage the biggest industrial action since the 1926 General Strike in a row over pensions.

AND FINALLY

They're the ultimate accolade for many youngsters - and criminals love them as well. The BBC reveals it has discovered an illegal trade in fake Blue Peter badges being sold over auction site eBay.

Awarded for achievement to viewers of the children's programme, the badges allow winners free entry to more than 100 tourist attractions. The programme suspends the offer.

APRIL

TRIBUTES pour in for North-East police officer Joe Carroll, killed in the line of duty.

PC Carroll, 46, is taking a suspect to a police station in Newcastle when his car overturns on the A69, near Corbridge, Northumberland. He dies of his injuries.

Prisoner Steven Graham, who caused the crash by grabbing the handbrake, is later jailed for five-and-a-half years for manslaughter and the force decides that all suspects will be handcuffed in future.

The Government faces one of its worst days in office, in what becomes known as Black Wednesday.

Deputy leader John Prescott admits having an affair with a secretary and Home Secretary Charles Clarke offers to resign as it emerges that foreigners guilty of serious crimes, including murder and rape, have been released into the community rather than being deported.

And Health minister Patricia Hewitt is jeered at a nurses' conference because of the way the NHS is making thousands of staff redundant.

Self-confessed British agent Denis Donaldson is found shot dead at his home in County Donegal, southern Ireland. It is thought he was killed by republicans who never forgave him for betraying the IRA, although the leadership denies the allegation,

The incident happens a few months after Mr Donaldson, 56, is unmasked as an agent who worked for British Intelligence in Ulster for 25 years.

Singer Gene Pitney dies in his hotel room during his British tour, at the age of 65.

AND FINALLY

A HUSBAND and wife set a record by driving around the world on only 24 tanks of petrol.

John and Helen Taylor's 78-day drive takes them 18,000 miles through Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada.

Mr Taylor, 45, who was born in Hexham, Northumberland, and his 50-year-old Australian wife make the trip in a VW Golf hatchback. It ends in London and underlines the fuel economy of a new formula being tested by oil company Shell.

MAY

THERE'S blood on the Downing Street carpet as under-fire Prime Minister Tony Blair attempts to reassert control over his feuding party.

The day after Labour records one of its worst performances in local elections since coming to power in 1997, and in the wake of persistent accusations of government sleaze and incompetence, Mr Blair carries out a major reshuffle.

Foreign minister Jack Straw and Home Secretary Charles Clarke lose their jobs, the latter in the wake of the scandal over freed criminals who were not deported and went onto commit serious crimes. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, embroiled in a sex scandal, is stripped of his ministry.

Among the big winners are environment minister Margaret Beckett, who replaces Jack Straw and inherits problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, where British forces are incurring growing numbers of casualties.

One of the catalysts for the move is the loss of more than 260 council seats the night before with David Cameron's revitalised Tories the biggest gainers.

Two men are jailed for life for the murder of a North-East schoolboy. Dean Pike died when a fireball engulfed his home in Mordey Close, Sunderland, last year. The 11-year-old had moved to the house with his mother six weeks before the tragedy and they were targeted in a case of mistaken identity. Killers Neil English, 43, and Terry Majinusz, 40, both from Sunderland, are convicted of murder at Newcastle Crown Court.

Darlington hits the headlines when it is revealed that the town is home to a small group whose lifestyle includes an acceptance of women as sex slaves. The sight of one of them being taken through the streets on a lead sparks media interest.

Boxer Naseem Hamed is jailed for 15 months on serious driving charges.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney and North-East former model Heather Mills separate after four years of marriage, blaming media intrusion. As the year goes on, McCartney, 63, and Mills, 38 become embroiled in increasingly vicious divorce proceedings.

AND FINALLY

It's the end of an era as the BBC axes North-East television series Byker Grove after 17 years.

The children's show that launched the likes of Ant and Dec films its last episode later in the year amid emotional scenes.

JUNE

THE country is gripped by football fever but it's the same old story as outgoing England manager Sven Goran Eriksson sees his team bow out of the World Cup on penalties, losing their quarter final to Portugal in Germany.

The turning point in a dramatic game is the sending off of petulant striker Wayne Rooney, who wins his battle to be fit after a broken metatarsal only to lose his temper in front of the referee.

Afterwards, an emotional David Beckham resigns as captain and new boss Steve McClaren responds by refusing to pick him in his subsequent squads.

Former England cricketer Fred Trueman, one of the finest fast bowlers the world ever saw, dies of lung cancer at the age of 75. Fiery Fred, who had been ill for some time, played for Yorkshire during his successful career and on retirement from the game became a pundit, commentator and after-dinner speaker.

Veteran broadcaster Mike Neville announces he is stepping down from Tyne Tees Television's North-East Tonight news programme due to ill-health. Mike, who became Britain's longest serving daily television presenter, having first appeared in February 1962, also presented the BBC's Look North news programme.

Much-respected North-East MP Roland Boyes, who represented constituents in Washington, dies after a long battle against ill-health.

AND FINALLY

Long-running BBC music show Top of the Pops is axed.

The show that, in its day, set the tone for all the other television music programmes is judged to be out of touch with modern-day needs

JULY

TWO women are killed when the inflatable Dreamscape artwork slips its moorings and soars into the air during an event in Chester-le-Street's Riverside Park.

Among those badly injured is three-year-old Rosie Wright, of Langley Park, County Durham, who suffers a punctured lung, internal bleeding, a lacerated liver and head wounds but who makes a remarkable recovery.

As Britain swelters in a heatwave, weathermen announce that it is the hottest July since records began in 1914.

Swan Hunter announces it is mothballing its last remaining shipyard with the loss of more than 300 jobs. The company says it has been given no alternative but to close its yard in Wallsend, North Tyneside, after the Ministry of Defence ended a contract.

There is outrage after footballer Lee Bowyer is fined only 90 seconds' wages for his on-pitch brawl with Newcastle United team-mate Kieron Dyer.

Newcastle magistrates fines the 29-yearold midfielder £600 and order him to pay £1,000 costs after he pleads guilty to using threatening behaviour during Newcastle United's 3-0 home defeat to Aston Villa in April last year.

The fine is described as derisory by coaches of North-East junior teams because they feel that the player, later transferred to West Ham United, has set a bad example and not been properly punished for it.

A 63-year-old becomes Britain's oldest mother. Dr Patricia Rashbrook, from Lewes, East Sussex, gives birth to a 6lb 10oz boy.

Middle Eastern politics convulse the world again as Israel sends troops into Lebanon in search of Hesbollah terrorists. After extensive bombing from both sides, an uneasy peace is declared but the war shows how tense relationships are in that part of the world.

Coming at a time when Afghanistan and Iraq remain tense, and increasing numbers of US and UK troops are being killed and injured, as well as many civilians, there is a sense that the world is not a safe place.

Enron founder Kenneth Lay, who was convicted of helping perpetuate one of the biggest business frauds in US history, dies of a heart attack in Colorado, aged 64. He was convicted in May, along with former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling, of defrauding investors and employees by repeatedly lying about Enron's financial strength in the months before the company plummeted into bankruptcy protection in December 2001. Lay was also convicted in a separate trial of bank fraud and making false statements Skilling is later jailed for 24 years.

And finally

A GEORDIE woman wakes up after suffering a stroke and discovers she is speaking with a Jamaican accent.

Linda Walker, 60, a former university administrator, from Fenham, in Newcastle, learns she has foreign accent syndrome, where patients wake up speaking differently after suffering brain injury.

She said: "I got very down about it at first. It is so strange because you don't feel like the same person. Not only did I have a stroke but I got lumbered with this foreign accent syndrome as well."

AUGUST

GOVERNMENT ministers bow to pressure to right a 90-year injustice by indicating they will grant posthumous pardons to more than 300 soldiers shot for alleged cowardice during the First World War.

The news ends decades of anguish for the families of the men, who were shot at dawn by their own side.

Ministers' move comes a few weeks after The Northern Echo launched a campaign, calling on Prime Minister Tony Blair to clear their names.

Mr Blair was presented with a petition from 1,537 readers calling for justice for the young servicemen, some from the North-East. Some of those executed were teenagers; some were suffering shell-shock; some were scared witless by months of heavy bombardment; and some were shot as an example to others.

Veteran campaigner John Hipkin, who has campaigned for pardons from his home in Walkerville, Newcastle, for many years, says: "We are delighted. We have so much to thank The Northern Echo for. "

The world's astronomers meet and end a years-long debate by deciding that Pluto should be downgraded and no longer classed as a planet.

An England-Pakistan cricket Test Match at the Oval is controversially abandoned amid allegations that Pakistan tampered with the ball, sparking their players into a walkout in protest. The ramifications rumble on throughout the year and Pakistan are eventually cleared.

It is revealed that former Newcastle United manager Sir Bobby Robson, plagued by ill-health over recent years, has a brain tumour. He comes through the operation well and by the end of the year has returned to his job helping the Republic of Ireland national team.

Aircraft all over the world are grounded, including many in the UK, after it is revealed that terrorists plan to commit another outrage by blowing several planes out of the skies. Stringent security checks ensue until the danger is past but is another reminder of how dangerous the world has become.

Tourette's Syndrome sufferer Pete Bennett wins the seventh series of Channel 4 show Big Brother. The 24-year-old rock singer from Brighton is widely praised for raising the profile of the condition, which leads him to twitch and swear involuntarily.

And finally

A HOMING pigeon's poor sense of direction sends it 5,000 miles off course to a Caribbean island.

Judy was supposed to arrive in Hadston, near Morpeth, Northumberland, after setting off from Bourges, France, in July but was instead found by British ex-pats Wendy Collins and Ryan Pologne at their home in St Eustatius, in the Netherlands Antilles (Dutch West Indies).

Judy's owner, John Stewart, 69, says: "I think she'll probably quite enjoy life in the Caribbean. It should be a lot warmer than Hadston. I think Judy must have hitched a lift on a boat.

"She's a grand flier but 5,000 miles is a heck of a long way for a little pigeon. She likes to do things the hard way. It was only a short hop across the Channel but she decided to disappear half way round the world."