Arabic version: فتح تحقيقات قضائية في وفاة شرطيين بحادث على الطريق A66
According to BBC News, inquests have opened into the deaths of Cleveland Police officers PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, who were killed in a crash on the A66 near Middlesbrough on Saturday.
Area Coroner for Teesside and Hartlepool Paul Appleton opened and adjourned the inquests during short, consecutive hearings at Teesside Coroner’s Court. He said the officers died in a fatal road traffic collision between Normanby Road and Church Lane in Eston.
The officers’ police vehicle was involved in a collision with a Volkswagen Passat that was driven against the flow of traffic on the dual carriageway. Appleton said there had been an “aborted” police pursuit, although neither officer was directly involved in it.
The inquest heard that PC Blades’ provisional cause of death was head and neck injuries, while PC Clough’s provisional cause of death was neck injuries. PC Blades was identified by his wife and PC Clough by his partner.
Further inquests into the deaths of five young men in the Volkswagen Passat are expected to open later. The coroner said he was awaiting full post-mortem reports, a report from the Independent Office for Police Conduct and a police collision report.
Flowers and tributes have continued to be left near the crash site. A Cleveland Police Federation fundraising appeal for the officers’ families has raised more than £1m, while a minute’s silence was held at Cleveland Police headquarters.
