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Detectives are not linking a house fire on Wednesday which killed a seven-year-old girl and her aunt to a crash on the A66 last weekend, Cleveland Police have stated.
The fatal crash last left seven people dead, including two police officers. Natalie McDonald, 34, and her seven-year-old niece, Valentina Foster, died in a house fire earlier this week near Middlesbrough.
Assistant Chief Constable Dave Sutherland, who is the head of local policing at Cleveland Police, said: “Since the tragic incident last Saturday morning in which seven people, including two of our serving police officers, Pc Matthew Blades and Pc Tom Clough, sadly lost their lives, officers and staff have remained working around the clock to continue to serve the public of Cleveland.
“In the same week, we have also seen a tragic house fire on Wednesday in which two people lost their lives, which is also understandably impacting the force and our local communities. At this time, we are not linking this incident to the fatal collision on the A66.
“Our thoughts remain with all those affected by these incidents as we continue our investigations into what happened.”
The development comes as Middlesbrough has descended into chaos following the wrong-way A66 crash.
Four of the five members of the public who died in the A66 had criminal records and witnesses near the home of one, 17-year-old Cole Worthy, said he had “fallen out with a gang rival”
Worthy, along with Theo Rae, 17; Makai Saddington, 18; and 23-year-olds Michael Robert Cahill and Jacob Matusiak were in the Passat and were declared dead at the scene in South Bank.
Anna Turley, Redcar MP, said she had been in a briefing with the Chief Constable of Cleveland Police, Victoria Fuller, who wanted to reassure the public that the police had the necessary resources to tackle the crime in the area.Ms Turley said: “People are feeling frightened in their communities, and I’ve just come from a really important briefing with the chief constable, who said that ‘I really want to reassure people that we have all the resources we need’.“We are working day and night to keep people safe.“We have over 200 extra officers from all across the country who’ve come in and who are doing everything they can, and we’ve seen from the number of arrests so far already that they are taking action.“They are keeping our communities safe, and they want us to feel reassured going forward.”Ms Turley said she personally felt reassured by the number of arrests made so far.She said: “This is not going to be a blip.“These resources will be here for some time, and then the conversation should start about what we need to do going forward.”
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