Thanks to reader David Johnson of Tiptree, who sent in these pictures when the Essex Air Ambulance was called into action close to his home. He wrote: "A man from Tiptree has been airlifted to Colchester General Hospital. "He was taken on a short journey
A serial hoaxer has been banned from every telephone box in the UK. Jeanette Upson made a series of 999 calls asking for fire engines, police cars and ambulances to attend homes of people she disliked. She also called taxis and pizza delivery services
Three people have died in a crash while returning home from the V Festival in Staffordshire today. Another three people were injured in the accident just after 3am on the M25 between junctions 28 and 29 at Brentwood. Steve Brant, Incident Support Unit
Tough questions have been posed on the future of Colchester's community stadium. As consultants work on a business case for the long-awaited new home for Colchester United, opposition councillors are demanding answers to 18 specific queries. The Labour
Check-in staff and baggage handlers at Stansted are set to stage two strikes over the bank holiday weekend in a dispute over pay. About 500 GMB union members voted three-to-one in favour of strike action to secure an improved pay offer from airport employer
Four Essex men were today being held by police in Cyprus after a teenager died following a road accident. The teenager gave a statement to police on his death bed, it emerged today. The four men - Julian Harrington, 38, James Goodwin, 21, Michael Binnington
Police today urged three teenagers who ran off "in disgust" after a 64-year-old woman was attacked to come forward. The woman was punched in the face while making her way home from a night out at bingo. Police said she was approached by a gang of four
Plans to switch off street lights could see the creation of "no-go areas" in Colchester with increased crime, it has been claimed. Tim Young, leader of the Labour group on Colchester Council, branded the proposal "ill thought-out" and "purely a cost-cutting
A leading councillor has described his own officers as a "damned disgrace" for denying a charity a £600 grant. Michael Talbot, speaking at St Osyth Parish Council last night, revealed a charity's grant application had been lost by Tendring Council.
The sun shone, anxious organisers breathed a sigh of relief and Walton went carnival crazy. Thousands of onlookers watched the dazzling procession thread its way through the town's streets for almost two hours on Saturday. There was a bumper crop of
A man who made a series of hoax 999 calls which led to a head-on crash between a fire engine and a moped has escaped jail "by a whisker". As a fire engine drove to a fictional blaze in Clacton, which Aaron Taylor had reported, on June 27, 2004, it was
It was a chilly end for a rare visitor on its way to the Sahara. A wryneck bird flying from central Europe to the Sahara got no further than a freezer in Trinity Close, Manningtree. Keith and Helen Everard heard a tap on the window of their bungalow
First aid cover in Walton on one of its busiest weekends of the year was put in jeopardy by vandals who wrecked the emergency centre. The first-aid caravan manned at weekends by volunteers from the Frinton and Walton St John Ambulance was broken into
The first building of the £2.2 billion Colchester Garrison redevelopment has been handed over to the Army. The community centre on Fallowfield Road will provide a home for support services offered for soldiers' families by the Army Welfare Service (AWS
Residents fed-up with living on a half-finished housing estate are calling for action to sort out the development. People living in new houses off Colchester's Northern Approaches say a catalogue of work still needs doing to sort out the estate. They
When her daughter returned home from school with a seedling, Lisa Patterson thought it was a broad bean plant. But she was proved wrong when it grew up to be a towering 15ft sunflower. "My daughter Summer, five, brought it home from school a couple
A wind farm could still be on the cards for the Maldon district, it has emerged. N-Power Renewables has lodged an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate after Maldon District Council's decision to refuse planning permission for a ten-turbine wind farm
Colchester department store Williams and Griffin has beaten off tough competition to get to the finals of the Excellence in Housewares awards 2006. The store reached the finals in two categories - the Excellence in Retailer Initiative category for marketing
A survey of residents in a Colchester street shows they are "broadly in favour" of introducing residents-only parking at lunchtimes. About 85 per cent of those surveyed said they struggled to find parking spaces during the lunchtime period. Councillor
Festival revellers have been praised for their good behaviour throughout this year's V Festival. Both the emergency services and the police hailed the weekend event at Hylands Park, Chelmsford, a success - despite a slight increase in the number of arrests
Who needs the V Festival? Certainly not the good people of Mersea, who rocked out at the island's second Bands By The Sands Music festival. Hundreds flocked to Waldegraves Holiday Park on Saturday to catch a variety of acts. They included Afro-Latin
Essex's Chief Constable has spoken for the first time about criticism levelled at him in police chat rooms. Roger Baker said anonymous comments made on the Police Oracle had been taken into account. He has released a statement after his no-nonsense
Police have released these images in the hope of identifying two young men who died in tragic circumstances after being found near a mid-Essex roadside. Essex Police are trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle of clues so they can identify the two men
Music-lovers flocked to the reopening of a guitar shop to meet a music legend in the flesh. Maker of world-famous amps, Jim Marshall, cut the ribbon at Trevor Durrant's new store in the Hythe, Colchester, on Saturday. Hundreds squeezed into the new
A wannabe West End starlet scraped through into the next round of a TV search to find the lead for a new musical. Colchester's Leanne Dobinson made the last eight in the BBC competition to fill the role of Maria in a London stage show of The Sound of
A best man is today lying in a coma after he was viciously attacked on his way home from a stag night. The 26-year-old, the groom and a 17-year-old friend were all set upon in Mersea Road, Colchester, at 2am on Saturday in what police believe was an
Ipswich Town are off the mark. And, while their opening point may not live long in the memory, this performance represented a vast improvement. True, it wouldn't have taken much to outclass last week's dismal 3-1 defeat at Leicester City. But there
Essex received a jolt to their Pro40 League aspirations when they suffered their first defeat of the season in the competition as Nottinghamshire won by 17 runs on the final day of the Colchester Cricket Festival. The visitors had started the match at
James Middlebrook had not enjoyed the best of summers with either bat or ball leading up to Essex's Castle Park confrontation with Surrey. But he had plenty to smile about as he played a key role in the demolition of the Liverpool Victoria County Championship
Tiptree United recorded their first FA Cup win for nearly six years when then enjoyed a 1-0 triumph at Ridgeons League division one club Gorleston. A solitary strike by Josh Leeke just after the half hour mark was enough to help the Jam-makers progress
West Bromwich Albion boss Bryan Robson highlighted Colchester United's strength in the air as one of the primary reasons for their second-half revival against his side. The Baggies cruised into a two-goal lead at half-time but allowed the U's to get
Geraint Williams admitted that a frank half-time discussion inspired his players against West Bromwich Albion. The U's first half display at the Hawthorns was hugely disappointing but there was a dramatic improvement after that. The game ended in a
Jaime Peters believes Ipswich Town have struck gold in new signings Mark Noble and Simon Walton. His new midfield colleagues made steady debuts in Saturday's 0-0 draw at home to Hull City in the Coca-Cola Championship. And, despite only working with
Jamie Guy has dedicated his first-ever goal in League football to his parents. The teenage sensation banged in Colchester United's only goal in their 2-1 defeat at West Bromwich Albion and the former U's youth-teamer was quick to acknowledge the sacrifice
The faithful were treated to an electrifying performance on the main stage at this year's V Festival. Faithless kicked off with dance classic God is a DJ and the heaving crowds responded by thrusting their arms into the air and joining in the party.
A solitary figure treated a small but captivated audience to a unique performance in the JJB Arena at this year's V Festival. Imogen Heap, a 28-year-old who is originally from Essex, started nervously but soon got her alternative pop-rock and electronica
When a seminal band of the early 1990s plays its seminal track half way through the set you do begin to worry. When that band is the Charlatans there's probably no need. The Only One I Know is one of the best songs of the Madchester period and with
To be honest the general V Festival goer is a pretty easy person to please. Just give them a set full of all your best bits and then thrown in some giant inflatable balloons to poke about in the air and they're happy. And that's exactly what Paul Heaton
The much anticipated headline act at the Channel 4 stage at this year's V Festival proved to be somewhat of an anti-climax. The Razorlight boys got off to a flying start with hits such as In the Morning and Golden Touch, but the performance then went
The sun broke through the clouds at an overcast V Festival as The Feeling took to the stage. Frontman Dan Gillespie-Sell's energy quickly spread across the large jubilant crowd as a sea of yellow balloons made their way towards the stage. The London-based
The V Festival often has a knack of throwing up wonderful little gems from time to time. Today it is quirky indie new kid about town, Jim Noir. Anyone who has a copy of his delightful debut album Tower of Love will be wondering, as was I, how he would
You either love him or don't and it appeared vast numbers of people at last night's V Festival didn't. They stayed away in droves making Morrissey's headline set one of the least ever attended. To be honest they didn't miss much. Despite an absolutely
After getting sunburnt and getting caked in mud, at various points over the weekend, being trod on and pushed from all sides not to mention sitting in the carpark for an hour waiting to get home at the end of each day, why do I want to go to V next year
