Hooded Youths Light Flares for Dead Joyriders — While a City Silently Mourns the Hero Cops They Killed on the A66
In the early hours of Saturday 22 August 2026, a Volkswagen Passat travelling the wrong way along the A66 near South Bank, Middlesbrough, collided head-on with a marked Cleveland Police armed response vehicle. All seven people involved died at the scene.
The five occupants of the Passat were Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Jacob Matusiak, 23, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and Cole Robert Worthy, 17. The two officers killed were PC Matthew Blades, 37, a married father of two, and PC Tom Clough, 38. Blades and Clough were travelling in the correct direction and had been assisting in a search for the vehicle; they were not part of the earlier pursuit.
Police had spotted the Passat, believed to be using cloned plates and linked to multiple incidents, and followed it for just under seven minutes. When the car entered the dual carriageway against the flow of traffic, officers aborted the chase. Approximately ten seconds later the collision occurred.
Four of the five young men in the Passat had previous convictions, including for assaulting police officers. Cleveland Police later stated the investigation had uncovered significant links to serious and organised criminal activity. By Monday 24 August, twelve people — nine men and three women aged between 19 and 61 — had been arrested across Teesside on suspicion of offences including possession of a firearm and participation in an organised crime group. A second vehicle linked to the group was also recovered.
The dual nature of the community response has been striking. On Monday evening, around 200 people gathered on a field in South Bank, only a short distance from the crash site, for a memorial focused on Jacob Matusiak. Many of the young men present wore hoods or face coverings. They released hundreds of orange balloons — said to be Matusiak’s favourite colour — and set off flares that filled the sky with coloured smoke. Scooters and quad bikes were revved as the group paid tribute. Some onlookers described the gathering as a celebration of a life; others viewed the flares and masked presence as a stark contrast to the quiet dignity shown elsewhere.
Across the city, a different form of remembrance took place. Silent prayers and quiet vigils were held for the two officers and, more broadly, for all seven lives lost. At St John the Evangelist Church in South Bank, doors were opened for people to light candles, sit in silence or offer private prayer. Floral tributes continued to appear near the scene and at Cleveland Police headquarters, where flags flew at half-mast. Families of the officers described them as heroes who put themselves in harm’s way to protect others. Blades was remembered by his wife as a devoted husband and father; Clough’s family spoke of his readiness to help anyone and his sense of public duty.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating the circumstances of the pursuit and collision as a mandatory referral. Meanwhile the criminal inquiry continues. The A66 has since reopened, but the human cost remains raw. Seven families are grieving. Two communities are processing the same event in profoundly different ways: one with flares and balloons under the open sky, the other with quiet prayer and the heavy knowledge that two officers never returned home from a night of duty.
The contrast lays bare the fault lines that run through the aftermath of this tragedy — lives cut short in seconds, and a town left to mourn in its own divided fashion.
