The five young men killed when their Volkswagen Passat collided head-on with a police vehicle on the A66 were allegedly searching for a rival gang after three homes connected to two of the occupants were rammed shortly before the fatal crash.
New details have emerged about the events immediately preceding the collision which killed seven people near Middlesbrough in the early hours of Saturday, August 22.
According to reports citing sources familiar with the dispute, properties belonging to the families of 17-year-olds Theo Rae and Cole Worthy were targeted by rivals travelling in a Volvo XC60.
The homes of Rae’s mother and grandmother were reportedly rammed, along with a property belonging to Worthy’s father.
Rae and Worthy subsequently travelled in a Volkswagen Passat alongside Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Jacob Matusiak, 23, and Makai Saddington, 18.
Sources have claimed the five were searching for the rival group responsible for the attacks when their Passat was spotted by police.
That alleged motive has not been publicly confirmed by Cleveland Police, but it potentially provides an explanation for why the five were travelling together in the Passat before the pursuit which ended in seven deaths.
Three Family Homes Reportedly Targeted
Three properties connected to Rae and Worthy were allegedly targeted in the hours before the crash.
One belonged to Worthy’s father.
Two others were connected to Rae’s family the homes of his mother and grandmother.
At the property belonging to Rae’s mother, a silver Audi convertible parked on the driveway was reportedly struck during the attack and shunted into the front of the three-storey house.
Images taken afterwards showed the damaged Audi outside the boarded-up property, with part of the damage to the building covered by a blue tarpaulin.
Worthy’s father’s property was reportedly empty when it was targeted.
Sources have claimed the attacks formed part of an existing dispute between rival groups and that the targeting of Rae’s family particularly angered those associated with him.
One source claimed properties had been targeted in vehicle rammings for months as part of a tit-for-tat dispute involving drugs and money.
Those claims about the origins and duration of the alleged feud have not been publicly established by police.
Police Have Confirmed A Volvo Was Ramming Properties
There is, however, an important part of the account that Cleveland Police has confirmed.
Before the fatal collision, police received reports concerning two vehicles being driven dangerously around Middlesbrough.
One was a Volvo XC60.
Police said the Volvo had been seen “ramming properties”.
The second vehicle was the Volkswagen Passat later involved in the A66 collision.
Cleveland Police has said it believes the Passat was associated with the activities involving the Volvo.
Both vehicles were allegedly using cloned registration plates, although they were detected by automatic number plate recognition technology.
The Volvo was subsequently recovered by police in Middlesbrough.
Five Men Allegedly Went Looking For Rivals
According to the latest reports, Rae and Worthy then joined Cahill, Matusiak and Saddington in the Passat.
The five were allegedly searching Middlesbrough for those responsible for the attacks on the three family properties.
This potentially fills an important gap in the timeline.
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, considerable attention focused on why five young men were travelling together at speed through Middlesbrough in the middle of the night and why the Passat subsequently attempted to evade police.
There was also speculation that the events could have been connected to social-media videos or an attempt to provoke a police pursuit.
Cleveland Police later said there was no evidence at that stage that the activity on Friday night and Saturday morning had been filmed for TikTok.
The emerging account instead suggests the five may have been travelling around Middlesbrough because of the property attacks which had taken place shortly beforehand.
However, while police have confirmed the relationship between the Passat and the activity involving the Volvo, they have not publicly confirmed that the Passat’s occupants were carrying out a revenge mission.
Passat Spotted By Police
Police subsequently encountered the Volkswagen.
A pursuit began and continued through Middlesbrough for almost seven minutes.
The Passat eventually entered the A66 travelling against the flow of traffic.
Officers pursuing the vehicle abandoned the chase.
Approximately 10 seconds later, the Passat collided head-on with a marked Cleveland Police armed response vehicle travelling correctly along the dual carriageway.
All seven people in the two vehicles died.
All Five Passat Occupants Killed
The five people travelling in the Passat were:
- Theo Rae, 17
- Cole Robert Worthy, 17
- Makai Saddington, 18
- Michael Robert Cahill, 23
- Jacob Matusiak, 23
The two officers in the police vehicle were PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38.
The armed response officers were not involved in the pursuit of the Passat.
They were in the area to assist in the search for the vehicle when it came towards them on the wrong side of the A66.
Crash Has Become Part Of Much Wider Investigation
What happened before the collision has subsequently become the focus of a major criminal investigation.
Cleveland Police has said its enquiries have established “significant links to serious and organised criminal activity”.
Seventeen people have been arrested during the wider investigation, with suspected offences including participation in the activities of an organised crime group, firearms offences, drugs offences, assisting an offender and making threats to kill.
The investigation is therefore no longer focused solely on why the Passat entered the A66 travelling in the wrong direction.
Detectives are attempting to reconstruct the criminal activity that preceded the pursuit, including the relationship between the Volvo, the Passat and the properties that were rammed.
Alleged Feud Had Been ‘Bubbling’ Before Crash
Sources have claimed the dispute did not begin on the night of the crash.
Instead, they allege rival groups had been involved in an escalating tit-for-tat campaign involving properties being rammed and a dispute over drugs and money.
The attacks on the three properties shortly before the crash are alleged to have caused a particularly serious escalation.
According to that account, the ramming of Worthy’s father’s home came first.
The attacks on Rae’s mother and grandmother allegedly followed.
It was after those incidents that the five young men are claimed to have taken to the streets in the Passat looking for the rival group.
Again, those details come from sources cited in media reporting and have not been confirmed in full by Cleveland Police.
Violence Has Continued Since The Seven Deaths
The significance of the alleged feud has grown because serious violence has continued across parts of Teesside since the crash.
Seven-year-old Valentina Foster and her aunt Natalie McDonald, 34, died in a house fire on Birchington Avenue in Grangetown on Wednesday.
Two men were arrested on suspicion of murder.
Cleveland Police has said it is keeping an open mind and cannot rule out links to wider organised crime, but no connection between the fire and the events surrounding the A66 crash has been established.
Natalie’s family has also stressed that she had nothing to do with gangs or the A66 crash.
Another property was subsequently rammed in South Bank, while a 39-year-old man was attacked with a bladed weapon in Eston.
Police have not established that all of those incidents are connected.
200 Extra Officers Brought Into Teesside
More than 200 additional police officers have now been brought in or are being deployed to support Cleveland Police as the force responds to the escalating situation.
The reinforcements include specialist capabilities ranging from detectives to armed response officers.
The heightened police presence comes as investigators attempt to establish who was responsible for the original property attacks, what the occupants of the Passat intended to do after those attacks and how far the suspected organised-crime dispute extends.
The latest account provides a potential explanation for one of the central questions surrounding the A66 tragedy: why Rae, Worthy, Cahill, Matusiak and Saddington were together in the Passat immediately before police began pursuing them.
Police have confirmed that the Passat was associated with the activity involving the Volvo which had been ramming properties, but the claim that the five were specifically hunting for a rival gang in retaliation for attacks on the homes of Rae and Worthy’s families remains an allegation rather than an established police finding.