A man serving life for murder has written to his local newspaper from prison 20 years after the incident in which he also shot a journalist.

In a three-page letter to his local newspaper The Northern Echo, Albert Dryden has shown remorse for the shooting.

The 71-year-old is serving a life sentence for the murder of Harry Collinson on 20 June 1991. He shot dead the planning officer as he prepared to demolish Dryden’s bungalow which did not have planning permission.

Dryden gunned down the Derwentside District Council official with a First World War revolver in front of scores of journalists who had gathered at the scene. It was the first murder in the country to be filmed by a BBC crew. A police officer and a BBC  TV reporter were also injured as he fired at people fleeing the scene.

An article by Echo reporter Mark Summers, who was also a reporter at the paper at the time, contains extracts from the letter and reveals that the majority of it contains a rambling account of the planning background to his case but at the end of the letter he writes: “At the same time, I am deeply sorry for what I did over 20 years ago.”

In June, the 20th anniversary of the incident, the paper carried a spread looking back on the murder, including an interview with Harry Collinson’s brother and journalists from the Echo’s accounts of the horrific day.

Despite expressing remorse for the murder, Dryden, who is believed to be in Acklington Prison in Northumberland, maintains he had done nothing wrong from a planning perspective in the lead-up to the incident.