In Middlesbrough’s Grangetown estate, teenagers on quad bikes with balaclavas circle muddy parks as dusk falls, watched by younger children gathered around the bikes in excited clusters. The scene is casual, almost normalised — and it takes place against the backdrop of the largest police operation the area has seen in years after seven people died in a single crash on the A66.
Cleveland Police have arrested more than twenty people since the crash in August, linking the deaths to a wider inquiry into serious and organised crime. But for many who live here, the police presence is only part of a much deeper fracture. Across Teesside, a profound distrust of law enforcement — voiced in blunt terms by young people on the estates — has become one of the defining features of life in the aftermath of the crash.
The crash that changed everything
On Saturday 22 August, a Volkswagen Passat being pursued by police travelled the wrong way along the A66 before colliding head-on with a police vehicle. Two serving officers — PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38 — were killed in the collision. All five people in the car also died: Michael Cahill, 23; Jakub Matusiak, 23; Makai Saddington, 18; and Theo Rae and Cole Worthy, both 17. Four of the five young men killed had amassed thirty convictions between them for offences including car theft, drug possession and assaulting police officers. Cahill had no prior convictions.
The chain of events that ended that night is believed to have begun eight miles away in a quiet suburban street in Acklam, a part of Middlesbrough that feels worlds away from Grangetown. Hanging baskets and neat front gardens line the bay windows of 1930s semi-detached homes. Behind large metal barriers on that street, one house stands scarred: a car was rammed into its bay window on the same night Cole Worthy died, smashing windows and scattering light and bumper fragments across the driveway.
The home belongs to Cole Worthy’s father, Gye Worthy. Police say the car used in the attack was a Volvo XC60. The BBC understands that Cole Worthy and the four others then set off in the Passat to find the Volvo. There is no suggestion that Gye Worthy is involved in criminal activity.
The residents who speak about the street live in fear. Most do so on condition of anonymity, worried that showing their faces could place them or their homes at risk. “They should be scared, shouldn’t they, that something’s going to happen to their property if they say anything or get involved,” one resident said. “So we don’t.”
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A landscape of violence
The attack in Acklam is far from Middlesbrough’s only recent case of a vehicle being used as a weapon. In May, a tractor was driven into a house on Priory Road. Since the A66 crash, Cleveland Police have investigated at least two further rammings. Detectives have also linked their wider investigation to a caravan fire on Attlee Road in Grangetown.
Whether every incident is part of a single feud has not been established. But taken together, the rammings, fires and arrests have created a powerful sense that violence is being used to intimidate, punish and send messages. One neighbour, gesturing at the balaclavas worn by those he sees around the estate, said simply: “It’s getting worse. They’re always balaclava-ed up as well, do you know what I mean?” He blamed drugs. “It can’t be anything else. Why would you be like you are unless it was drugs?”
On the estates of Grangetown and South Bank, graffiti bears witness to the losses. Three letters are repeated on walls: “FTP” — an expletive directed at the police. Nearby, the letters “RIP 2UZZI” mark what is said locally to be the nickname of Jakub Matusiak, one of the five young men killed in the crash, who lived one street away. A seventeen-year-old boy who knew him said: “He was my best mate. It’s sad.”
Both communities rank among England’s most deprived neighbourhoods, living with the void left by the decline of heavy industry. On the South Bank estate, a group of teenagers tend three ponies tethered on the grass while others perform wheelies on electric scooters. More than a dozen homes on the adjoining estate have boarded-up windows.
Distrust runs deep
The most unsettling aspect of the BBC’s reporting in Grangetown is not what happened on the A66 but the attitude toward those meant to uphold order. One seventeen-year-old, asked whether he would call the police if another young person approached him carrying a knife, said no. Then he added: “I’ve never needed the police in my life. I’d rather die than ring the police.”
Again and again, young people expressed profound distrust. Two teenagers in balaclavas tearing across a park on a red quad bike — pulled over by a reporter for a chat — insisted the area was not out of control. “No. Definitely not,” the driver said. When asked about the gangs, he replied: “They’re saying there are gangs, but there are no gangs. It’s not London, mate. Do you know what I mean?”
Like many young people in the area, the quad bike riders blamed the police for the deaths on the A66. The circumstances of the crash remain under independent investigation.
Cleveland’s Chief Constable Victoria Fuller described what the BBC had heard as “horrifying”. She said a small minority of people in the Grangetown area blight those communities, but added: “We will continue relentlessly to serve our communities.”
Why it matters
The A66 crash has laid bare a deployment of police that is substantial but possibly insufficient to the scale of the challenge. Cleveland Police have arrested 87 people for offences linked to organised crime gangs over the past two years, and 16 people have been jailed for such crimes. Since the crash, more than 200 additional officers have been deployed in Middlesbrough and surrounding communities. Their immediate task is to suppress the violence and identify those directing it.
But the longer-term test is different: rebuilding trust and confidence in a place where generations of economic decline have left communities feeling abandoned. The area has some of the highest police-recorded crime rates in England and Wales, yet recent inspections show Cleveland is one of the most improved forces in the country, with performance levels judged to be among the best nationally. The contradiction — high crime, improving force, deep public distrust — captures the complexity of what Cleveland Police and the communities they serve are now facing.
What happens next
The independent investigation into the circumstances of the A66 crash continues. Cleveland Police say their immediate focus is on suppressing further violence and identifying those directing it. More broadly, the question now is whether the trust deficit in Teesside can be addressed at all — and what it would take to bridge it. A woman who moved to Grangetown not long ago asked a reporter to move their car from outside her home, frightened her property would become collateral damage. But what worried her more was her children’s future. “I’m terrified my son will end up like them,” she said, gesturing to the lads with balaclavas tearing up the grass on the quad bike. “He’s only ten. I don’t want him to grow up like that.”
Source: BBC News
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