A Home Office minister has faced criticism after paying tribute to five joyriders who died alongside two police officers in a head-on crash on the A66.
Anna Turley, the MP for Redcar and border security minister, wrote on Facebook on Sunday that she had gone to South Bank to lay flowers and pay her respects “to the seven people whose lives were so tragically cut short yesterday”. The five male youths were found dead at the scene after their vehicle, driving the wrong way down the road, collided with a police car. Pc Matthew Blades and Pc Tom Clough, travelling in the police car, died instantly.
Conservative criticism
Conservative MP Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, said Turley’s response did not “feel right”. In a post on X, he wrote: “Anna Turley is a Home Office minister. She wants to ‘pay her respects to the seven people whose lives were tragically cut short’ in the Middlesbrough crash this weekend.
“I can’t be the only one for whom this statement jars. We may live in an age of emoting, but we should be able to see the difference between right and wrong. And it doesn’t feel right for a Home Office minister to put two police officers on a par with the thugs who killed them.”
Minister’s response
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Turley responded: “I’m dismayed that Nick Timothy would try and use a horrific situation that has deeply affected my community, and my local police force for a cheap political tweet. One that is deliberately disingenuous at that.”
The crash claimed the lives of seven people. The five youths were named as Makai Saddington, 18, Theo Rae and Cole Worthy, both 17, and Michael Cahill and Jacob Matusiak, both 23.
