Town rocked by A66 horror dubbed ‘UK homicide capital’ the place ‘criminals do what they need’
Over the past year, people living in the Teesside town faced the highest risk of being murdered with a homicide rate of 21.7 per million people, the highest of reporting police force areas
Police at the scene of a house fire being treated as a murder (Image: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)
A town living in fear of a gangland turf war that has claimed nine lives in five days was last year branded the most dangerous place to live in England and Wales.
Armed cops from across northern England are being sent to help restore order on the streets of Middlesbrough after a surge in apparent tit-for-tat attacks left one of the smallest police forces in the country stretched to breaking point.
The horror violence has thrust the town into spotlight. But as we reported last year, shock Home Office figures showed 23,000 crimes were recorded in the town over the previous 12 month period, a rate of 158 offences for every 1,000 people.
The deaths of the brave gun cops sparked an outpouring of grief(Image: Cleveland Police/PA Wire)
That figure represented a fall of 5% from the previous year, but it was still top of the list of shame. It was the equivalent of one in every six people who live there falling victim to a crime last year.
And over the past year, people living in the Teesside town faced the highest risk of being murdered. There were 23,419 crimes in Middlesbrough over the past 12 months, translating to a crime rate of 150 crimes per 1,000 people.
In 2025/26, Cleveland Police reported a homicide rate of 21.7 homicides per million people, the highest among police force areas in that reporting year. If you live on the Grangetown estate, the centre of the turf war, the fear of violence is all too real.
Tit-for-tat gang attacks have surged this week
After the death of two brave gun cops – PCs Matthew Blades, 37, and Tom Clough, 38 – the town has descended into chaos with gangland pals of five youths killed in the horror believed to be linked to the fire-bombing of a house that killed a seven-year-old child.
Little Valentina Foster and her aunt Natalie McDonald, 34, died in the fire. Another woman, 48, who was pulled from the burning building, remained in a critical condition in hospital. One terrified local told The Sun: “It’s like living in the Bronx.”
And local Kinga Misztal, 52, who lives just around the corner from the scene of the fatal fire which claimed the lives of Valentina and Natalie, told the Mirror: “What is happening is just terrible. So many people have died. I was not scared after the accident but this is fire so bad and so close, it is dangerous now.”
Another home was rammed yesterday in South Bank(Image: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)
Andy Preston, who served as mayor of Middlesbrough from 2019 to 2023, described the town as England’s crime capital where criminals can do ‘what they want’ and dominate the streets.
He warned that ordinary people are now facing death threats, seeing guns shot at front doors and cars rammed into houses.
Councillor Robert Clark, who represents the Teesville ward on Redcar and Cleveland Council, said it was “another incredibly difficult” time for their community.
He wrote in a Facebook post: “I honestly don’t know how much more heartache our little town can take. After everything that has happened over the last few weeks, waking up to the awful scenes in Grangetown is just devastating.”
