A former news editor who worked at the Nuremburg war crimes trials has died, aged 73.

George Exley, who spent 36 years working for the Scarborough Evening News, died in hospital at the weekend.

He had held various positions at the paper including news editor and motoring correspondent.

But Mr Exley was best known for his involvement in the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for which he was awarded an MBE in the 1996 New Year’s Honours list.

Mr Exley started his career as a cub reporter with a weekly newspaper in Lancashire after leaving grammar school when he was 16.

He was called up in November 1945 and became a shorthand typist with the army’s legal department.

He worked at Nuremburg war crimes trial and had reached the rank of sergeant before leaving the army in 1948 to continue his journalism career.

He worked as a reporter in West Yorkshire and the Midlands before joining the Evening News in 1956.

He retired in 1991 but continued as the paper’s motoring correspondent until last year.

Former deputy editor, Mick Jefferson, said: “George was a journalist of the old school – thoroughly professional in everything he did.”

Mr Exley leaves two sons, a daughter and five grandchildren.

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