A former Salvation Army captain, from Northumberland, who stole more than £33,000 from the charity and an Alzheimer's sufferer to ``rob Peter to pay Paul" has walked free from court.

Heather Wallace, 52, stole £24,700 from Kathleen Maggs, who lived in a care home with her husband and whom she had power of attorney over.

The ex-Salvation Army captain for Midsomer Norton, in Somerset, who now lives in Woodhorne Road, Ashington, took the money to repay £9,669 she had taken from cash donations given to the charity in order to pay off her adoptive son's debts.

Young mothers in Northumberland have been learning how to tighten their belts and boost their family finances at money management workshops run by a children's charity.

Parents have been offered tips including how to cope with the cost of Christmas at Action for Children's Financial Futures workshops at children's centres in Ashington and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea.

The workshops, run by Action for Children staff and volunteers from Barclays Bank, are part of a £1.8m national partnership between the bank and the charity aimed at improving financial literacy and helping people to avoid debt.

Plans to create a new supermarket in Ashington look set to be given the go-ahead.

Wansbeck Council's planning department has recommended that approval be given for the 53,000sq ft Asda store on the former site of Portland Park.

The application is due before councillors at a planning meeting at Ashington Town Hall on Wednesday November 5 at 7pm.

Young people are being targeting in a hard-hitting campaign to reduce the number of bonfire and firework-related injuries across Northumberland.

Fireworks injure almost 1000 children in the North of England every year, often resulting in permanent scarring or disfiguration. Now Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service is warning pupils in secondary schools about the dangers in a programme of educational visits.

Criminals in Ashington got an early morning wake up call today after a series of dawn raids by Northumbria Police.

The "arrest day" marked the start of a major initiative aimed at driving down crime throughout Northumberland over the coming months.

More than 50 officers hit addresses in the county, arresting people wanted for offences ranging from violence to theft. Other targets include people who fail to appear in court and those who have breached community sentences.

Landmark locations will be seen in a new light this winter with the return of a hugely popular winter festival. Northumberland Lights - and the award-winning team behind it - are back with more bright ideas for outdoor illuminations.

From November 2 to 30, the winter festival will bathe some of the most beautiful and remote spots from Blyth to the Borders in an array of colour, in celebration of the county's contrasting architectural and natural environment.

FREE bus transport for older students is set to leave Northumberland County Council with a £500,000 bill. But councillors last night hailed the scheme to provide passes for A-level and college students as a massive success - and said it was likely to cost much less than feared.

The free pass has seen the number of teenagers using buses more than double, from 800 in July to 1,850 now. The county council took the decision to scrap fares after they rose to £360 a year under the previous Labour administration.

IT'S been a huge hit with audiences in Newcastle and London and now home-grown play The Pitmen Painters has won a prestigious theatre award.

The newly-announced award by the Theatrical Management Association is the icing on the cake for Lee Hall's play, which is based on the real-life story of a group of Ashington miners who found fame in the art world in the 1930s.

It won the Best New Play category at the London ceremony where other winners included actress Brenda Blethyn, and producer Bill Kenwright whose special award for individual achievement was presented by Dame Judi Dench.

AN ASHINGTON electronics cooling system group is looking to grow after a management buy-out secured its future.

Thermacore, which employs 65 people at its European headquarters at Ashington and about 110 in the US, had been for sale on the open market for a year.

A £6.5m management buy-out, led by executives in the US, bought the business from US group the Modine Manufacturing Company, which had owned it since 2001.

Ashington social outcast John Henry Taylor, shunned after stealing a car containing a baby, was given another chance. Sex offender Taylor, 35, is loathed in his close-knit home town after drunkenly stealing and crashing a car with a baby strapped into the back seat from Ariel Street in Ashington.

He was jailed for that and when he was released had three days to notify police of his new home address because he has been a registered sex offender since 2005.

At Bedlington Law Courts Taylor admitted failing to give police his address and two charges of being drunk and disorderly.