Bad weather kills seven

Northern Britain was battered by high winds

Seven people have died in severe gales sweeping northern Britain.

Four people died in the north of England and three in Scotland, where many rail services were cancelled due to the high winds.

Road and bridge closures added to travel chaos and motorists were advised to stay at home.

Five deaths were a result of lorries overturning in separate incidents.

Police have named one woman who died in an accident on the A1M.

Jane Margaret Collins, 47, of Laceby, north-east Lincolnshire, was a passenger in a lorry driven by her husband.

Durham Police said she died at the scene and her husband was taken to hospital with a fractured neck.

One man died and a woman was seriously injured when a tree fell as they walked in the grounds of a hotel in Dunkeld, Perthshire.

Elsewhere a woman, believed to be in her 40s, died after a piece of masonry fell from a church in York.

Roads reopened

Wreckage caused by the atrocious conditions was gradually cleared and roads reopened as the winds abated.

Railtrack suspended almost all services in Scotland after a train from Inverness to London, with 120 people on board, was hit by a tree.

A number of lorries blew over because of high winds

GNER said it would not be running services north of Newcastle and Scotrail said it had suspended electric services and put a 50mph limit on diesel services.

Scottish Power said there were 35,000 customers without electricity after gusts up to 90mph damaged power lines in Scotland.

More than 6,000 homes and business in Northern Ireland are also without electricity as gale force winds affect supplies.

Power cuts blamed on the atrocious conditions have also hit around 20,000 homes in the Tyne Valley, close to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Roads closed

The Environment Agency still has 23 flood warnings in place in parts of Wales, the Midlands and north west England.

Flooding has been mainly contained to low-lying fields and roads and river levels are dropping in all regions.

But many tidal areas are braced for high tides and strong winds expected to continue during the week.

Ground crews at Newcastle Airport were forced to shackle light aircraft in a sheltered area after strong winds threatened to blow a plane away.

This house was hit by a storm-damaged tree

Around 200 pupils from Dunn St Primary School in Jarrow, South Tyneside, escaped injury after classroom windows shattered, spraying glass everywhere. A number of lorries were also blown over.

Elsewhere, police closed the M6 between junctions 39 and 40 and were advising drivers of high-sided vehicles in severe weather areas across England to stay off the roads until the winds abated.

Full details of flood warnings can be found on the Environment Agency website.