$re = '/(\r?\n)\s*\+\s*(?=\d{2}[- \/.]\d{2}[- \/.]\d{4})|\r?\n\s*\+\s*/m';
$str = '22/03/2012 intro
+ 22/03/2012 body
+ more body
';
$subst = "$1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php