Former Star editor Brian Hitchen and wife killed in Spanish road accident

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/dec/02/spain-dailystar

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Brian Hitchen, the former editor of the Daily Star and Sunday Express, has been killed along with his wife in a road accident in Spain.

The couple were struck by a car while crossing a road near Alicante. Nelli Hitchen died at the scene. Hitchen was taken to hospital, but died from his injuries after surgery and being placed in a medically-induced coma.

Hitchen, aged 77, was editor of the Daily Star from 1987 to 1994 and then moved to edit its sister publication, the Sunday Express for a year. After leaving the group, he set up his own media company and acquired the Irish publication, Kerry Life.

One of Fleet Street's most ebullient and jovial characters, Hitchen won his Fleet Street spurs on the news desks of the Daily Express and Daily Mirror. He later spent time working for the National Enquirer in the United States, where he recruited several British tabloid journalists.

His self-confident character can be gauged from his Twitter handle, @NoBullshitHitch. And he laughed off the nickname he gained at the Star, Benito, because some staff thought he resembled Mussolini.

A spokeswoman for the Star's owner, Northern & Shell spokeswoman, confirmed the deaths. She said: "Brian was taken to a hospital in a very grave condition and doctors were not able to save him … Our thoughts are with their family at this time."

Hugh Whittow, the Daily Express editor who worked with Hitchen for several years at the Star, said: "Brian was one of my very best friends and I am deeply, deeply saddened by this tragic news. Brian was talented, funny, generous, full of mischief and everyone loved him.

"He was devoted to Nelli and she was devoted to him, and they both adored their children and grandchildren. This is tragic news. There are so many people on Fleet Street and in many other walks of life who owe so much to him. He was a brilliant journalist and an absolutely fantastic man."

Whittow properly reflects the fact that Hitchen was renowned for mentoring young journalists. Many seasoned tabloid reporters were trained by him.

A lover of big news stories, particularly if they involved crime, Hitchen liked to tell of his role in the tracking down of the Great Train robber, Ronnie Biggs, during his days on the Express.

And, on the Enquirer, he was responsible for masterminding the obtaining of the picture of Elvis Presley after his death. "Circulation went up to 6.5m that week," he liked to say.

One of the last pictures of an ever-smiling Hitchen showed him at the September wedding of his son, Alexander, who is a journalist with the New York Daily News.

<strong>Comment:</strong> Even though Brian's muscular right-wing politics were very different from mine I enjoyed his company whenever possible. And we agreed a great deal about journalism and about press regulation.

He rescued the Star from public ignominy in 1987 after a terrible quasi pornographic period. And he was not responsible for its current celebrity-obsessed agenda.

We often bumped into each other on the train from Brighton - he had a house in Shoreham - and shared journeys that were punctuated by his laughter. He was, quite simply, a great guy to be around.

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