A66 Pursuit Tragedy: Two Police Officers Among Seven Killed

Seven people lost their lives in the early hours of Saturday 22 August 2026 when a Volkswagen Passat travelling the wrong way along the A66 at South Bank, near Middlesbrough, collided head-on with a marked Cleveland Police armed response vehicle.

Among those who died were Cleveland Police officers PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, along with the five occupants of the Passat.

In this episode, former detectives Tom Wood and Simon McLean examine what is currently known about the tragedy while recognising that the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collision is still at an early stage.

Tom explains how police pursuits are controlled, why a pursuit can be abandoned when the danger becomes too great, and the specialist training required to drive police vehicles at high speed.

Simon and Tom also reflect on incidents from their own police careers which brought home the risks faced by officers on the road.

Simon recalls the 1994 death of Strathclyde Police officer PC Stuart Simpson, who was killed when his police vehicle was struck head-on by a car travelling the wrong way on the M8.

Tom remembers losing two traffic officers while he was an acting divisional commander in West Lothian — and the devastating experience of personally going to the home of one of the officers to tell his wife that her husband had died.

The conversation also examines:

how police vehicle pursuits are managed and terminated;the highly specialised training of police traffic drivers;the role of Armed Response Vehicles in British policing;why most British police officers continue to patrol without firearms;the impact that the death of colleagues can have on a close-knit police force;and the support needed by officers and other emergency workers who attend traumatic scenes.The circumstances leading to the A66 collision are being investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). Tom and Simon therefore distinguish between what is known and the questions that remain unanswered.

00:00 — Cold Open

00:50 — The A66 tragedy: seven people killed

02:43 — How police pursuits are controlled and called off