In the early hours of Saturday, 22 August 2026, seven people were killed on the A66 at South Bank, near Middlesbrough, when a Volkswagen Pᴀssat travelling the wrong way along the dual carriageway struck a marked Cleveland Police armed response vehicle heading in the correct direction. The collision happened at about 03:39 BST between Normanby Road and Church Lane in Eston. Everyone in both cars was pronounced ᴅᴇᴀᴅ at the scene.

The officers who died were PC Matthew Blades, 37, a father of two, and PC Tom Clough, 38. The five people in the Pᴀssat were Michael Robert Cahill, 23; Jakub Matusiak, 23; Makai Saddington, 18; and 17-year-olds Theo Rae and Cole Robert Worthy. On Thursday, 27 August, Area Coroner Paul Appleton opened and adjourned short inquests into all seven deaths at Teesside Coroner’s Court. He said the Pᴀssat had been driven against the flow of traffic and that a police pursuit had been aborted. The two officers who died were not directly involved in that chase. PC Blades was identified by his wife and PC Clough by his partner. The five young men were identified through fingerprint analysis. Provisional medical evidence recorded head and neck injuries for PC Blades, neck injuries for PC Clough, head and neck injuries for Matusiak, head and chest injuries for Worthy, head and torso injuries for Cahill, and blunt head injury for Saddington and Rae. Full hearings will wait for completed post-mortem reports, a collision investigation, and a report from the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

The IOPC has said Cleveland Police received intelligence linking the Pᴀssat and its five occupants to a series of incidents that night. The car was later spotted and an armed response vehicle began a pursuit that lasted just under seven minutes. When the Pᴀssat turned onto the A66 the wrong way, officers called off the chase and stayed on the correct side of the road. About ten seconds later the Pᴀssat collided with a different police car that had not been part of the pursuit. That vehicle, carrying PCs Blades and Clough, was in the area to help search for the Pᴀssat after cloned number plates triggered an automatic number-plate recognition camera. Cleveland Police has also said it received reports of two vehicles being driven dangerously that morning. One, believed to be a Volvo XC60, was seen ramming properties in the Middlesbrough area; the Pᴀssat was thought to be connected to that activity. Both cars were said to have been using cloned plates, and the Volvo was later recovered in the town. The force has described the events as serious criminal activity that led to the fatal collision.

In the days after the crash, the officers’ families described them as devoted family men and called them heroes. Flowers and tributes were left near the site, a minute’s silence was held at Cleveland Police headquarters, and a Police Federation appeal for the officers’ families raised more than £1 million. Friends and relatives of the five young men held a vigil and balloon release. Cleveland Police later said four of the five in the Pᴀssat had previous convictions, including ᴀssaults on officers, while Cahill was reported as having none. Police also announced a first wave of twelve arrests across Teesside — nine men and three women aged 19 to 61 — on suspicion of offences including possession of a firearm and participation in an organised crime group. Further arrests were later reported. Those inquiries are continuing alongside the IOPC investigation, which began after a mandatory referral because people died following contact with police. The inquests remain adjourned until the remaining reports are complete.