These are the latest ECHO headlines this morning.
Prison officer 'laughed' as police raided her house after affair with inmate
A former prison officer claims she laughed when police raided her house after she was involved in a high speed pursuit with an escaped prisoner.
Philip King was serving a sentence at Altcourse prison for burglary and theft when Chloe Jones began working at the prison as a custody officer. She then began a relationship with him.
On July 18, 2017, King was transferred to HMP Sudbury, near Derby - but the pair kept in touch on an illicit mobile phone. Over the next 46 days the couple sent over 3,000 texts to each other.
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After King escaped from HMP Sudbury Jones invited him to her family home in Kirkby. She allowed the escaped inmate to stay at her home and use her car while they remained in a relationship.
King, continued to work as a prison officer at HMP Altcourse during this period of time and chose not to tell her employers about her partner. King later drove Jones' Ford Fiesta to the scene of a burglary. The next day King and Jones were involved in a police pursuit.
Last month Jones , talking to podcast 'I Kidd You Not' , spoke about how she became involved with King while working at Altcourse. She said: "We used to see each other around and say hi and whatever. He was walking around with his top on ."
Read the full story here.
Fraudster who stole £800k bragged he was 'totally self made'
A well-known business man, who stole £800k from a hotel after it was destroyed by a fire, bragged he was "totally self made".
Simon Matthews-Williams, 62, was formerly a successful hotelier who owned sites such as Liverpool city centre's waterfront Crowne Plaza, the £15million Hotel Indigo and James Street's three-star Days Inn. But he was jailed on September 12 for 28 months after he was found to transfer nearly £800,000 out of the bank account of one of his former companies and never pay the huge sum back.
A trial at Liverpool Crown Court previously heard the "experienced company director" was a minor stakeholder in the Gateway to Wales Hotel, near to the A494 in Deeside, North Wales. By early 2019 though, Matthews-Williams "no longer had any role" in the business and "had long given up any financial interest or management in the hotel".
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However, he still retained access to its banking facilities. And on five separate occasions, he made payments of just under £200,000 into another of his company's accounts before transferring the total of £794,779 onwards to himself and his family members "to pay bills that he was being pressed to pay".
Matthews-Williams was a well-known business man who had previously spoken to The ECHO about how he was "totally self-made" and used to work as a cocktail water. He claimed nobody had ever given a penny to him.
Read more here.
Unearthed hidden room in bombed out church led to incredible discovery
Despite being bombed to almost complete destruction, a Liverpool landmark is still capable of revealing hidden treasures.
Located in the heart of Liverpool city centre, St Luke's - more locally referred to as the Bombed Out Church - is an event space, meeting point and an important part of the city's history. In 1941, German bombers carried out a series of devastating raids on Liverpool over a seven day period, which became known as the May Blitz.
St Luke's was hit by an incendiary device and the building burned for three days. Miraculously, as it was struck in the early hours, no lives were lost.
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When the flames were finally extinguished, only the shell of the building remained. Now surrounded by neatly kept gardens, the church's remains have been given a new life as both a monument and space for socialising and the arts.
However, back in 2011, custodians of the famous landmark believed they had made an important discovery. Located on a stained-glass window, next to what was formerly the main entrance on Bold Place, is the image of a cormorant.
It has been dubbed the "first Liver Bird" by those who were convinced it pre-dated those created by Carl Bernard Bartels for the Royal Liver Building by almost a century. The discovery was made while work was being carried out to clear an area known as the "forbidden zone", which is closed to the public for safety reasons.
Read the full story here.
