rammed into properties and a stabbing<\/a> at a housing estate in Eston which have dominated headlines, as people look to Middlesbrough with concerns over the levels of crime.<\/p>\n![\"Pc](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/edfbdc464fbfd463088688f5d5432f85Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzg4MDEwODU2-2.85666409.jpg\")
Pc Tom Clough, left, and Pc Matthew Blades were killed in the A66 crash last weekend (Cleveland Police\/PA) (Cleveland Police)<\/p>\n
The assistant chief constable continued: \u201cSince these two horrific events, the reality of policing in Cleveland and the levels of violence suffered in our communities, has come under the spotlight on a national level.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrave officers face significant challenges day in day out, but I want to reassure the public that we will remain unwavering in our efforts to tackle criminals and protect our communities. Despite these challenges, calls for service to the force are being answered effectively, we are deploying to incidents, and investigating crime as we do every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to acknowledge the support and additional resource we are receiving from a number of other forces in the northern region and beyond, and also from the National Crime Agency. This support not only means we can maintain our service to the public, but also continue to conduct patrols in the areas most affected and be a visible presence should anyone wish to speak to officers with any concerns.<\/p>\n
![\"Jacob](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/A66-split.png\")
Jacob Matusiak, Theo Rae, Michael Robert Cahill, Makai Saddington and Cole Robert Worthy were all killed (Facebook)<\/p>\n
\u201cLastly, I want to thank the general public. Our officers work closely with many corners of our communities on a daily basis to tackle issues in their local neighbourhoods, and whose support these past seven days has been overwhelming and very much appreciated. It has provided officers, staff and the families of the officers with great comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following on from the police announcement, Anna Turley, Redcar MP, affirmed that not every incident police attend was linked to the investigation into organised crime.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI think it\u2019s really important to get across the fact that these incidents are not all linked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could feel that way at the moment because of the national spotlight on us, but unfortunately, we know we\u2019ve had a high level of crime and in this area for a long time now, these are incidents, sadly, that we see all the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be this way, and it\u2019s up to us to make sure that there isn\u2019t a business as usual which sees that high level of crime and disorder going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Cleveland Police have been at pains to say we shouldn\u2019t think that these are all connected, and we shouldn\u2019t be jumping to conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[16575,11346,6764,173,46399,6355,7734,1514,6767,5,6],"class_list":["post-113113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-accidents-and-disasters","tag-attending","tag-color-image","tag-england","tag-fire-engine","tag-horizontal","tag-house","tag-middlesbrough","tag-photography","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117175128284227186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Breaking](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775802907_431_breakingNews1_1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Police](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/e1e78f2d76ddf903e1051e63fc4c7a24Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzg3OTkyMjI0-2.85667736.jpg\")
Police officers at the scene on Birchington Avenue, Grangetown, near Middlesbrough, where Valentina Foster, aged seven, and Natalie McDonald, 34, died following a fire (Owen Humphreys\/PA) (PA Wire)<\/p>\n