Inquests have opened into the deaths of seven people killed in a head-on crash on the A66 in South Bank, including two police officers and five occupants of a Volkswagen Passat. All seven were pronounced dead at the scene.
PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, died after their marked armed response vehicle was hit by a car travelling the wrong way down the dual carriageway in the early hours of Saturday, August 22. The five occupants of the Passat — Cole Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and 23-year-olds Michael Robert Cahill and Jakub Matusiak — also died at the scene.
Identification and causes of death
Teesside Coroners’ Court heard that “all occupants of both vehicles were sadly pronounced dead at the scene”. On Thursday morning, area coroner for Teesside and Hartlepool Paul Appleton said PC Blades was identified by his wife, and PC Clough by his partner. The provisional cause of death was said to be head and neck injuries for PC Blades, and neck injuries for PC Clough.
Mr Appleton said: “At this stage it is understood that there had been a police pursuit of the Volkswagen Passat. It entered the A66 carriageway against the flow of traffic, at which stage the pursuit was aborted. A short time after… the Volkswagen Passat collided with a police vehicle, which had not been directly involved in the prior pursuit.”
Inquests for Passat occupants
On Thursday afternoon, inquests were opened into the deaths of the occupants of the Volkswagen Passat. In separate hearings, Mr Appleton said that the young men were identified through fingerprint analysis. The causes of death were said to be neck injuries for Mr Matusiak, head and torso injuries for Mr Cahill, head injuries for Mr Saddington and Mr Rae, and head and chest injuries for Mr Worthy.
Police have arrested 17 people following the A66 crash, charging two of them and bailing the others, as part of investigations into alleged organised crime. The Passat had been pursued by police following an earlier incident in which a house in the Acklam area of Middlesbrough, linked to Worthy, was rammed by a vehicle.
Ongoing investigations
Police have previously said the five young men in the Passat may have had links to “serious and organised criminal activity” and four of them have previous convictions.
The inquests come as two men continue to be quizzed on suspicion of murder after seven-year-old Valentina Foster and her aunt Natalie McDonald, 34, died in a house fire in Grangetown — around a mile away from the crash site — on Wednesday morning. Police have not ruled out a link between the two incidents.
