Police have condemned the actions of a crowd after cars were torched and flares set off at a gathering for one of the men killed in a head-on collision with police on the A66.
Footage on social media showed several vehicles on fire at the event, which was reportedly a vigil to remember 23-year-old Michael Cahill, in a field in Haswell, County Durham.
Durham Constabulary said officers and fire crews were called to a privately owned field at 5.30pm, adding the majority of the crowd had travelled from outside the area.
Blue balloons and flares were also released, with one attendee captioning the videos “Rest in Peace Mickey”.
Cars could also be seen skidding around with a number of people on motorbikes and quad bikes.
Later on Thursday, more videos shared online appeared to show burnt-out cars being moved from the field by a tractor. Police said they let five cars set alight burn out as the field was contained.
Assistant Chief Constable Jon McAdam, of Durham Constabulary, said: “The behaviour we saw at last night’s gathering was completely unacceptable.
“Our officers and the communities of County Durham and Darlington were understandably horrified by the tragedy which unfolded on the A66 last week, which resulted in multiple deaths, including two serving police officers.
“We utterly condemn anyone who would use that tragedy as an excuse for disorder and expect the overwhelming majority of the public would join us in doing so.”
Nobody was injured and no arrests were made.
Anna Turley, MP for Redcar, said the scenes of vehicles being driven dangerously across fields were “completely unacceptable”.
In a post on Facebook, Home Office minister Ms Turley said: “It puts lives at risk, places even more pressure on our already stretched emergency services and leaves residents frightened and angry in their own communities.
“After everything our area has endured over the past week, I will not accept this kind of behaviour becoming normalised.”
The footage comes after hundreds of police officers were drafted in after a spate of violent incidents in the Teesside town of Middlesbrough, which a local MP said has left people “not feeling safe” going to the shops.
Alec Brown, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Council, said more than 200 extra police officers have been, or will be, deployed from around the country to support Cleveland Police, and that he would be asking the prime minister for more support.
He said officers were “working 20-hour days to ensure the ongoing safety of innocent residents”.
The violent incidents began with the head-on crash on the A66, which killed seven people, including two police officers, on Saturday.
On Wednesday, a fatal house fire a mile away from the crash site took the lives of a seven-year-old Valentina Foster and her aunt Natalie McDonald, 34.
Initially, police said they could not rule out a possible connection between the fire and the A66 crash, but on Friday confirmed they were not linking the two incidents.
“Our thoughts remain with all those affected by these incidents as we continue our investigations into what happened,” they said.
Two men have been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the blaze which also injured four others.
A further two incidents on Thursday prompted concerns of further violence, after a vehicle crashed into a wall outside a house in Steele Crescent, South Bank, just minutes away from the other two scenes in the early hours.
At around midday, a 39-year-old was stabbed in nearby Sedgemoor Road, Eston.
A man who lives near the scene of the stabbing said people in the area were “trying to keep our heads down”.
Referring to the postcode that covers Eston and Grangetown and South Bank, among other areas, he said: “TS6 has gone mad, it’s brutal.”
Police have arrested 17 people following the A66 crash, which followed a police pursuit, charging two of them and bailing the others, as part of investigations into alleged organised crime.
PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, died in the head-on collision with a Volkswagen Passat on Saturday.
Cole Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and 23-year-olds Cahill and Jakub Matusiak were also killed in the incident.
