Welcome to your daily look at the news in the North East.
Each morning and lunchtime we'll bring you some of the latest news from the North East - from breaking news and top stories to NUFC updates and the cost of living latest.
This morning we start with the terrible news that a teenage girl with a "heart of gold" has died in a North Shields flat fire.
The blaze tore through a property on Vicarage Street on Monday morning. A body was found at the property, and though police say formal identification is yet to take place, officers believe it to be 18-year-old Leah Casson.
Elsewhere, a knife attacker who was jailed indefinitely for stabbing his friend in the neck for refusing him £2 has died behind bars.
Jonathon Mark Hogg, of Middlesbrough, was deemed a danger to the public following the horrifying attack more than a decade ago, Teesside Live reports, which saw him walk up to a friend and knife him in the neck - severing a vein, cutting an artery, and scarring him for life. Hogg then walked past his bleeding victim telling him he hoped he'd die.
But on July 3, 2022, Hogg died in hospital. His cause of death was intra-abdominal visceral perforation (perforation of the intestine or other organ that causes the contents to leak into the abdomen), caused by liver disease.
Meanwhile, a former nurse has been jailed after targeting a 12-year-old girl on Facebook with "disgusting" sexual messages.
John Gibson bombarded the child with 37 sexual messages, demanding to see her topless and sending a photograph of his genitals. Four days later he tried to engage in sexual communication with another girl of the same age but it was a decoy profile.
Gibson, who claimed he did it while having alcohol-induced blackouts, was previously jailed for three years and two months for the offences in relation to the decoy and has now been back in court for the offences against the real child. A judge at Newcastle Crown Court added six months to the sentence he is already serving.
And finally, in happier news, a five-year-old boy who lost his dad got a special visit from police officers - and ended up leading them on a patrol. Harry Farrell, who lives with his mother Emma Overton and stepsister Molly, was only four when his father Craig died. The 39-year-old passed away in May 2022.
At Christmas, Harry received the present which he wanted most in the world - a miniature police bike. PC Phil Skevington, from Durham Roads & Armed Policing Motorcycle Section, spotted videos of Harry proudly riding his new bike around his street in Norton, Stockton.
After hearing about what Harry had gone through over the last seven months, he decided to organise a little surprise visit for him.
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