THE sterling work of your Champion of the North is being highlighted as part of a national community campaign.
Local Newspaper Week &ndash which runs all this week &ndash aims to highlight work the media does in the community. And the Sunday Sun can give itself a pat on the back, having been at the forefront of helping our readers, since it first rolled off the presses 90 years ago. As part of the national event, we have put the Sunday Sun’s recent activities under the microscope, and discovered a plethora of campaigns, from the continuing efforts of consumer champion Mr Justice to our campaign for stiffer knife crime sentences. Last year we teamed up with the Children’s Foundation to help them achieve the Great North Baton Challenge, an appeal to provide state-of-the-art facilities at the Great North Children’s Hospital. Currently being built on the site of Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, the &pound100m hospital is set to welcome its first young patients in 2010 . . and together with you, our readers, we’re helping the charity kit it out with everything from futuristic furniture to 3-D wall projections. In the past 12 months we’ve also claimed success in our Jail Knife Thugs campaign, which demanded immediate prison sentences for anyone caught carrying a bladed weapon.
In the wake of the campaign, the law was changed so that anyone 18 or over caught with a blade on the streets would face at least three months in jail, while those 16 and 17 will face certain prosecution.