Row breaks out over minister's tribute to all A66 crash victims

A row has broken out after a Home Office minister paid tribute to all seven victims of the deadly A66 crash.

Anna Turley, who is also MP for the area where the crash took place, was accused by shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy of placing five men who were in a car travelling on the wrong side of the road "on a par" with two police officers in an oncoming car they collided with.

All seven died in the crash near Middlesbrough in the early hours of Saturday, which detectives said resulted from "serious criminal activity".

Turley said Cleveland Police "had specifically requested" she pay tribute to all victims in any message. The force declined to confirm or deny this when contacted by the BBC.

In a letter, Turley accused Timothy of having "sought to create media hits and political points" which was "beneath contempt".

She said there was no "moral equivalence, or judgements about worth" in her tribute.

The row centres on a lengthy Facebook post Turley made shortly after the incident, in which she wrote: "This morning I went down to South Bank to lay flowers and pay my respects, on behalf of our whole community, to the seven people whose lives were so tragically cut short yesterday."

Timothy took issue with that in an X post on Monday night, saying he did not wish to "speak ill of the dead" but that "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," he added.

In her reply, Turley said she was "utterly appalled" by the accusation and said she did not know the identities of who had died at the time of her tribute, other than PCs Matthew Blades, 37, and Tom Clough, 38, who she named.

While she said Cleveland Police had asked her to pay tribute to all victims, the force has not confirmed this and the area's police and crime commissioner told the BBC it does not issue media advice regarding police incidents.

Police later confirmed that Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Jacob Matusiak, 23, Makai Saddington, 18, Theo Rae, 17, and 17-year-old Cole Robert Worthy were all in the car on the wrong side of the A66. All bar Cahill had previous convictions.

The Volkswagen Passat was being pursued by police until 10 seconds before the crash , according to the police watchdog.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct said the Passat was believed to be using cloned registration plates.