Body found in search for missing NHS TV chaplain

Katherine Watson worked at a Newcastle NHS trust

A body has been found in the search for a missing hospital chaplain.

Katherine Watson, 50, who worked as the head of chaplaincy at a Newcastle NHS trust and was featured in the TV series Geordie Hospital, went missing on Thursday.

Northumbria Police said a body was discovered in the Jesmond Dene area of Newcastle, which it believed was Ms Watson.

Supt Darren Adams said it was "an incredibly sad outcome".

No third party was believed to have been involved in the death, the force said.

Ms Watson - also known as Reverend Captain Katie Watson - joined the army when she was 18 and served in Bosnia, Croatia and Northern Ireland.

She joined Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in 2007 and became head of chaplaincy in 2020.

She appeared in Channel 4's Geordie Hospital alongside her staff welfare hound Poppy.

People who knew Ms Watson have taken to social media to write tributes, with one calling her the "most wonderful woman" and others saying she was "kind" and "considerate".

Northumbria Police said a formal identification of the body had yet to be carried out.

In a joint statement the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, and the Bishop of Berwick, the Right Reverend Mark Wroe, said they mourned Ms Watson's death with a "deep feeling of loss".

She lived her vocation in "service, compassion and humility", they said, adding: "Our first thoughts are with her partner Emily and their children and all who knew and loved Katie."