Several cars have been set on fire at a warped vigil for one of the joyriders who died in a head-on crash that killed two police officers on the A66 last weekend.
Crowds of teens in tracksuits gathered to remember Michael Cahill at Haswell, County Durham, around 20 miles north of the scene of the crash near Middlesbrough.
They paid tribute to the 23-year-old by skidding around the field, crashing through hedges and setting five cars ablaze.
The youths also set off blue flares and released balloons spelling out his name.
Remnants of fireworks, smoke canisters and balloons, along with litter and the bumper of one of the burned-out cars, were still scattered across the field this morning.
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Kate Dearden MP told Times Radio the scenes were ‘absolutely horrendous’.
She said: ‘What’s happened overnight, I can’t even imagine how that feels for local communities and just how worried they’ll be.
‘I want the police to get on with their investigation, as I’ve said, and provide that support to them.
‘And I know Andy’s in contact with my colleagues in government as well, and we’ll keep providing that support to him, but to the communities there as well.
‘And I know the police obviously have stepped up that resource. That’s the right thing to do. I want to get criminals off the streets so people are safe.’
Hundreds of extra police have been drafted in to help deal with a spate of suspected gang-related incidents linked to the crash.
That includes a house fire a mile away from the scene, which claimed the lives of a seven-year-old girl and her aunt on Wednesday.
Cole Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and 23-year-olds Michael Robert Cahill and Jakub Matusiak all died in the head-on collision early on Saturday.
PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, were also killed.
More than £1million has been raised to support their families in the week since.
Andy McDonald, the MP for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, said of the escalating violence in his constituency: ‘This is terrorism.’
He told Times Radio yesterday: ‘People are saying that they are going to their shops and not feeling safe to do so and feeling trapped in their own homes.
‘That is just unacceptable.’
Mr McDonald earlier told BBC Radio 4 there appeared to be a ‘causal link with organized crime’.
Alec Brown, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Council, said more than 200 extra police officers have been, or will be, deployed from around the country to support Cleveland Police, and that he would be asking the Prime Minister for more support.
He said officers were ‘working 20-hour days to ensure the ongoing safety of innocent residents’.
Anna Turley, MP for Redcar said in a post on Facebook: ‘I know how worried people are, and understandably people want to know what is being done.
‘There is a significant response under way, with additional officers and resources being brought into our area and agencies working together around the clock.’
She added: ‘People have a right to feel safe in their homes and in their communities. That is our absolute priority.’
Residents told of their concerns after two more incidents in the same area on Thursday.
A vehicle crashed into a wall outside a house in Steele Crescent, South Bank, minutes away from the other two scenes in the early hours and at about midday a 39-year-old was stabbed in nearby Sedgemoor Road, Eston.
A man who lives near the scene of the stabbing said people in the area were ‘trying to keep our heads down’.
Referring to the postcode which covers Eston and Grangetown and South Bank, among other areas, he said: ‘TS6 has gone mad, it’s brutal.
‘We are just trying to keep our heads down.’
Police have arrested 17 people following the A66 crash, which followed a police pursuit, charging two of them and bailing the others, as part of investigations into alleged organized crime.
Meanwhile, two men have been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the fire which killed Natalie McDonald, 34, and seven-year-old Valentina Foster and injured four others.
Ms McDonald’s devastated brother Josh Kirton told reporters: ‘My sister was not involved with anything to do with gangs, or the (crash on the) A66.
‘That’s what makes this so senseless.
‘People think they can do whatever they like.
‘There’s some terrible people in the world and now my sister and Valentina have gone.’
Officers investigating the South Bank crash said they had not yet confirmed if it was linked to wider organized crime.
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