Seven dead in head-on collision involving police vehicle in UK

Seven people, including two police officers, have died in a head-on collision during a pursuit, after a vehicle driving down the wrong side of a major road hit a police car in the United Kingdom.

All occupants of both vehicles were pronounced dead at the scene near Middlesbrough in northeast England on Saturday, according to the Cleveland Police.

A total of 12 people have been killed in less than a week in separate accidents involving cars driving on the wrong side of the road in the UK and Ireland, as a similar collision occurred in Dublin on Sunday.

The Cleveland Police said five members of the public were travelling along the wrong side of the road in a Volkswagen Passat when it collided with a marked police vehicle heading in the correct direction at around 3:39am (02:39 GMT).

Authorities are investigating the exact circumstances of the crash but said they understood that officers had begun a pursuit when they sighted a “suspicious vehicle”.

“This is an incredibly sad day for Cleveland,” Cleveland Police Chief Constable Victoria Fuller said.

The police force said it had formally identified the passengers in the Volkswagen Passat and was contacting their families.

Fuller named the two dead officers as police constables Matthew Blades, 37, and Tom Clough, 38, describing them as “brave officers … who didn’t return home to their families at the end of their shift”.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on X that he was “devastated” to hear about the loss of life and urged people “to avoid speculation at this time”.

The incident follows two similar recent head-on crashes near Dublin, with authorities there highlighting a social media-driven trend for “wrong-side” driving among young people.

After the collision in Dublin on Sunday, Ireland’s prime minister, or taoiseach, Michael Martin, said it was the latest in a series of similar incidents. “There can be no tolerance for this reckless behaviour that we have seen on our roads recently. It must stop,” Martin said.

Irish police chief Justin Kelly added that it came after another head-on crash on a motorway and warned that “what makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases it is being done for social media”.

An Irish parliament committee has asked short-form video platform TikTok to explain how it removes content “that appears to glorify dangerous and illegal behaviour on our roads”. On Tuesday, Ireland’s media regulator made a similar request.