Former regional press editor Harold Evans has been knighted for services to journalism.

Sir Harold, who is a former editor of the Northern Echo, received his knighthood from the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace after being granted the title in the New Year's Honours List.

He began his career at the Manchester Evening News before taking the helm at the Northern Echo in Darlington.

While at the Echo, during the 1960s, he won a posthumous pardon for Timothy Evans who was wrongly hanged for strangling his baby daughter.

Sir Harold also led campaigns against inflammable nightware, following a spate of incidents where women were badly burned, a campaign for better roads and campaigns against industrial pollution on Teesside.

The veteran newspaper editor and publisher is best known for his work as editor of the Sunday Times between 1967 and 1981.

He led the paper into a court battle to report the story of how the drug Thalidomide caused birth defects in the children of the mothers who used it.

Sir Harold later became editor of the Times, before moving to the United States, and has lived in New York since 1984.

Do you have a story about the regional press? Ring 0116 227 3122/3121, or
e-mail pastill@nep.co.uk