Seven more arrested in the wake of A66 crash, bringing total to 24

Cleveland Police have confirmed seven more men have been arrested following the A66 wrong-way crash.

This brings the total arrests to 24 as part of the operation to disrupt organized crime, with several charged with serious offenses and a number of offenders recalled to prison.

The latest arrests include four men – aged 35, 25, 40, and 21 – who are in custody being questioned on suspicion of criminal damage with intent to endanger life, arson, and possession with intent to supply class A drugs.

All four were in a vehicle stopped by police on Kingsley Road in Grangetown at 10.30pm yesterday.

The arson offense relates to a caravan that was set alight on Atlee Road in Middlesbrough at 5.30am on Wednesday, while the criminal damage with intent to endanger life relates to a suspected ramming of a garden wall in Steele Crescent in Middlesbrough in the early hours of Sunday.

Class A drugs and a Mercedes car were seized following the arrests.

Officers also seized £15,000 in cash after the three other men were arrested.

They are a 23-year-old held on suspicion of threats to kill, a 42-year-old detained on suspicion of threats to kill and possession of criminal property, and a 30-year-old arrested on suspicion of possession of criminal property.

All three have been released on conditional bail.

Cleveland Police Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Fox said: ‘This robust approach demonstrates our commitment and determination to pursue those who we believe are intent on causing serious violence and harm to our communities.

‘Be assured, our relentless pursuit of suspected organized criminals will not waver.

‘I want to encourage anyone who believes serious violence and organized crime is taking place in their neighborhood to report it so we can keep on taking action.’

The arrests follow confirmation from police this evening that they are not linking a house fire, which killed a seven-year-old girl and her aunt, to the A66 crash.

Still, hundreds of extra police have been drafted in to support officers after a series of recent incidents in the Middlesbrough and County Durham area, which began with the wrong-way crash.

In the early hours of August 22, seven people died, including two police officers, PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38.

Both were killed when a Volkswagen Passat, which had been pursued by police seconds before, hit their marked armed response vehicle.

The Volkswagen was driving the wrong way down the dual carriageway near Middlesbrough, while the police car was travelling in the correct direction.

All five passengers of the VW, who were young men, died at the scene. They were identified as Cole Robert Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and 23-year-olds Michael Robert Cahill and Jacob Matusiak.

The crash resulted in a mandatory referral from the police force to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which opened an investigation into the circumstances leading up to it.

It also led to MPs writing to social media platforms after a string of dangerous driving incidents, videos of which are accessible and ‘glorified’ online.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, who chairs the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, branded it ‘shocking that videos glorifying dangerous driving can be accessed so easily’ on the likes of TikTok and Snapchat.

In her letters, also sent to YouTube and Meta, she said recent reporting on ‘tragic’ road crashes in the UK and Ireland ‘has brought renewed attention to concerns about content on video-sharing platforms that promotes dangerous driving’.

An account belonging to one of the five Volkswagen passengers in the A66 collision was found to have shared videos last year, showing reckless driving. They have since been removed.

A week prior to the Middlesbrough incident, there was a wrong-way crash in Ireland, which claimed the lives of five teenagers.

They died when the car they were in, driving the wrong way down the motorway, went head-on into another vehicle, hospitalising another four with serious injuries.

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