đź’” The family of one victim says “lives could have been saved”—heart-wrenching questions following the A66 tragedy are drawing public attention
đź’” The family of one victim says “lives could have been saved”—heart-wrenching questions following the A66 tragedy are drawing public attention.
Seven people lost their lives, including two police officers.
As investigators continue to reconstruct the minutes leading up to the crash, the family of one victim has spoken out regarding the police response and the decisions made during the pursuit.
They are now seeking a clear explanation of what transpired before the situation spiraled out of control.
👇 Details weighing heavily on the family’s minds can be found in the comments.
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“Lives Could Have Been Saved”: Family Questions Police Pursuit Decisions After the A66 Tragedy
In the aftermath of one of the most devastating road collisions in recent North East England history, the family of one of the young men killed has voiced a painful and pointed question that continues to reverberate. Speaking publicly days after the crash that claimed seven lives, a relative of Jacob Matusiak stated that the family had been told the police pursuit “should have been called off earlier” and that, had it been, “lives might have been saved.” The comment, made to Sky News, cut through the immediate grief and formal tributes to focus attention on the critical minutes before the fatal impact on the A66 near Middlesbrough.
On the early morning of Saturday, 22 August 2026, a Volkswagen Passat carrying five young men travelled the wrong way along the dual carriageway and collided head-on with a marked Cleveland Police armed response vehicle. All seven people involved died at the scene. The occupants of the Passat were Michael Robert Cahill, 23; Jacob (also referred to as Jakub) Matusiak, 23; Makai Saddington, 18; Theo Rae, 17; and Cole Robert Worthy, 17. The two officers were PC Matthew Blades, 37, a father of two, and PC Tom Clough, 38, a former soldier. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) immediately opened an investigation, as is mandatory whenever a death follows police contact.
According to the IOPC’s initial findings, Cleveland Police had received intelligence about “numerous incidents” linked to a Passat believed to be using cloned registration plates that had activated an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera. An armed response vehicle began pursuing the car. Analysis of in-car footage showed the pursuit lasted just under seven minutes. When the Passat entered the A66 at South Bank against the flow of traffic, officers aborted the chase and continued on the correct side of the carriageway. Approximately ten seconds later, at about 03:39 BST, the Passat collided with the vehicle carrying PCs Blades and Clough. Those two officers had not been part of the original pursuit; they had been deployed to the area to assist in the search for the suspect vehicle.
It is against this timeline that Matusiak’s family has sought clarity. His cousin told Sky News that the family was “just devastated for everyone involved.” Acknowledging that Matusiak “was no saint and has been involved in stuff before,” the relative insisted that the family still needed “the full picture.” The key claim was stark: “We all want answers – we were told the chase should have been called off earlier. If it had been called off earlier lives might have been saved.” The statement did not accuse officers of deliberate wrongdoing. Rather, it expressed a desperate need for transparency about the decision-making process in those final minutes and the possibility that a different tactical choice might have altered the outcome.
Police pursuits are governed by strict national and force-specific guidelines designed to balance the need to stop suspects against the risk to the public, the officers involved, and the people being pursued. Officers are required to continually assess risk, including the nature of the alleged offences, the behaviour of the vehicle, road conditions, traffic levels, and the potential for catastrophic consequences. When a vehicle begins travelling the wrong way on a dual carriageway, the risk profile changes dramatically. In this case, the pursuit was terminated at that point. Yet the collision occurred only seconds later with another police vehicle that had been tasked with locating the same car. The family’s question centres on whether the earlier phase of the chase—lasting nearly seven minutes through urban streets—should have been discontinued sooner, and whether different decisions about the positioning of supporting units might have reduced the chance of a head-on impact.
The wider context of the night adds further layers of complexity. Before the fatal collision, police had received reports of two vehicles being driven dangerously in the Middlesbrough area. A Volvo XC60 was witnessed ramming properties, including a house belonging to the father of Cole Worthy. There is no suggestion that Worthy’s father was involved in any criminality. Investigators have linked the activities of the Volvo and the Passat. Four of the five young men in the Passat had previous convictions; Matusiak was among them. Michael Cahill was the exception, with no recorded convictions. Cleveland Police later described the events as having significant links to serious and organised criminal activity, and multiple arrests followed in the days after the crash.
For the families of the five young men, the public narrative of criminal associations and reckless driving collides with private loss. Matusiak’s relative did not seek to absolve him of responsibility. The acknowledgment that he “was no saint” was explicit. Yet the family still believes the police response requires full examination. They are not alone in wanting detailed answers. The IOPC investigation will examine the intelligence that prompted the pursuit, the decisions made during the seven-minute chase, the precise moment and reasons for aborting it, the deployment of the armed response vehicle that was struck, communications between units, and compliance with pursuit policy. The coroner has opened and adjourned inquests, awaiting post-mortem results, the IOPC report, and the police collision investigation.
The two officers who died have been widely remembered as dedicated public servants. PC Blades was described by his wife as her “beloved husband,” “best friend,” and “the most devoted father” to their two young sons. PC Clough’s family called him “our hero,” a man with a “fantastic sense of humour” who “jumped into action whenever needed” and had “always [been] on public duty.” A fundraising appeal for their families quickly surpassed £1 million, reflecting the depth of public sympathy for officers who did not return home from their shift. Their vehicle was travelling lawfully on the correct side of the road when it was struck. The family’s questions about the pursuit do not diminish the officers’ sacrifice; they sit alongside it as part of the same tragic sequence of events.
Police pursuits remain one of the most high-risk activities officers undertake. Every decision is made under pressure, often with incomplete information, in fast-moving situations where suspects may be determined to escape. National statistics and previous inquiries have shown that pursuits can save lives by stopping dangerous drivers, yet they can also contribute to fatalities when things go wrong. The A66 case presents a particularly stark example: a pursuit that was terminated the moment the vehicle entered the dual carriageway the wrong way, followed almost immediately by a catastrophic collision with another police unit. Whether the earlier stages of the chase should have been called off, whether the supporting vehicle should have been positioned differently, and whether alternative tactics could have been employed are precisely the questions the independent investigation is designed to answer.
For Matusiak’s family, those answers cannot come soon enough. Grief is compounded by uncertainty. The cousin’s words—“we want answers” and “lives might have been saved”—express a common human need after sudden, violent death: the desire to understand whether the outcome was inevitable or whether different choices might have produced a different result. The family has not claimed to possess evidence that officers acted improperly. They have simply stated what they have been told and asked for the full picture. In doing so, they have focused public attention on the operational decisions that preceded the crash.
The IOPC process is independent of Cleveland Police. Its findings will eventually be published, and the coroner will consider them at the full inquests. Until then, the sequence of events rests on the preliminary account: intelligence about a suspicious vehicle using cloned plates, a pursuit of just under seven minutes, an abort decision when the car went the wrong way, and a collision ten seconds later with a second police vehicle that had been sent to help locate the Passat. That timeline is now under intense scrutiny.
The A66 tragedy has left multiple families shattered. Two officers died doing their jobs. Five young men died in a vehicle travelling the wrong way on a major road. The community has absorbed the shock of the deaths, the subsequent disorder at some memorial gatherings, and the wider investigation into organised crime. Amid all of this, one family’s simple, heartbreaking assertion—that lives could have been saved if the pursuit had been called off earlier—has kept the focus on the critical minutes before impact. It is a claim that demands careful, independent examination rather than immediate acceptance or dismissal. The investigation now underway exists precisely to provide the clarity that Matusiak’s family, and the public, are seeking.
In the end, the question of whether different decisions might have altered the outcome is not only operational. It is also human. For the relatives left behind, every unanswered detail about those final minutes prolongs the pain. For the officers’ families, the knowledge that their loved ones died while responding to a dangerous situation is already almost unbearable. For the wider public, the case raises enduring issues about how police balance the duty to stop suspects with the duty to protect life—including the lives of those being pursued and the lives of colleagues. The family’s words have ensured that these issues cannot be set aside. They remain, heavy and unresolved, at the centre of the A66 story.
