Former Mirror editor Stott dies

Former newspaper editor Richard Stott in 1992

Columnist and former newspaper editor Richard Stott has died aged 63 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Mr Stott edited the Daily Mirror, Sunday People and Today newspapers, and more recently wrote a column in the Sunday Mirror.

The father-of-three also edited Alastair Campbell's diaries, finishing them from his hospital bed.

His family said he was "remarkably stoic" throughout his illness and died with his wife Penny by his side.

In a statement, the family said: "Mr Stott held five editorships, a Fleet Street record, of three newspapers during his career.

I could not have asked for a better editor, nor a better friend Alastair Campbell

"In recent years he was known for his Sunday Mirror column which he continued writing until a couple of weeks before his death."

Current Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace described his predecessor as "one of Fleet Street's great editors".

"His great eye for a story and rumbustious personality came through on every page and he commanded the respect of friends and foes alike," he said.

Mike Molloy, another former editor of the Daily Mirror, told Sky News: "If there were more journalists around like Stott we'd live in a better country because he thought that the job of a journalist, and particularly an editor, was to find out what was wrong and try and put it right for ordinary people."

Alastair Campbell, a former journalist at the Daily Mirror, said he had been fortunate to see a lot of him in the final years of his life after asking him to edit his diaries.

"I could not have asked for a better editor, nor a better friend," he said.

Mr Stott, who died on Monday morning, had three children - Emily, 35, Hannah, 32 and Christopher, 28 - and one grandchild, Phoebe, aged two.

His memoirs, Dogs and Lampposts, were published in 2002.