Middlesbrough violence leaves community ‘shellshocked’ “This place might look bad but it’s not, the people are good people.” Those words, spoken by a woman in Grangetown before she turned to her young daughter and asked, “Is this place bad?”, captured the fear and defiance gripping a Middlesbrough community after a week of violence. The girl shook her head vigorously. But just around the corner stood the burned-out shell of a house deliberately set on fire on Wednesday, killing Natalie McDonald, 34, and her seven-year-old niece Valentina Foster. Less than a mile away, the A66 became the scene of another devastating tragedy on Saturday. A head-on collision killed seven people, including police officers Matthew Blades and Tom Clough. Cleveland police initially linked the crash to organised crime and said they could not rule out a connection to the house fire. But on Friday, officers said there was no link between the two incidents. For neighbours gathered opposite the house in Birchington Avenue, that came as little surprise. They had already insisted there was no connection, while one neighbour bluntly identified drug users as the problem in the area. John Kirton, McDonald’s brother, was furious at suggestions his sister had any involvement with gangs or the A66 crash. “That’s what makes this so senseless,” he told reporters, saying people believed they could “do whatever they like”. The grief has unfolded alongside growing fears about organised crime. Residents described Grangetown as a tight-knit community where “everyone looks out for each other”, but also acknowledged serious problems involving gangs of boys and young men, drug dealing and other crimes. The scale of the fear was underlined by Middlesbrough and Thornaby East MP Andy McDonald. He said people felt trapped inside their homes and afraid even to go to the shops, describing the situation as a form of “terrorism”. Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash said communities felt organised crime was “embedded”. There have been nine deaths, alongside other potentially gang-related crimes including a knife attack and the ramming of an empty house. Then came another disturbing incident. On Thursday evening, video circulated on social media showing cars being set alight at a vigil for one of the men killed in the A66 crash in Haswell, County Durham, around 20 miles north of the crash site. The community has been left “shellshocked”, fearful of what could happen next and demanding reassurance. Redcar and Cleveland council leader Alec Brown said authorities were working “tirelessly” to make people feel safe. Around 200 additional police officers have been brought in from other forces, with officers from Northumbria, Durham, Humberside and North, South and West Yorkshire forces joining the National Crime Agency. Some were seen arriving at Cleveland police headquarters on Friday morning. The hope is clear: a huge show of police strength could calm tensions and reassure residents. But Redcar MP Anna Turley warned against treating every incident as part of the same organised-crime investigation. “I think it’s really important to get across the fact that these incidents are not all linked,” she said. The national spotlight may make them appear connected, she added, but the area has experienced high levels of crime for a long time. Terry Chapman, who was born and raised on another Middlesbrough council estate, travelled to the scene of the house blaze because he felt compelled to come. He described what had happened as “really horrendous and scary”, but insisted the criminals were a minority. “The vast majority of people, including in places like Grangetown, are absolutely fantastic people,” Chapman said. He argued that most residents were decent and law-abiding, but that a small minority had gained a bigger influence after going unchecked for years. The physical surroundings underline the deprivation. Grangetown and South Bank have rundown terraces of shops, many closed, while the area has no obvious centre and strikingly few pubs. The former Magnet pub, which once hosted early gigs for Grangetown-born comedian Roy Chubby Brown, has become a Heron Foods branch. The A66 crash has left another painful mark. Police had pursued a VW Passat carrying five young men for seven minutes before it turned on to the dual carriageway against the flow of traffic. The pursuit was aborted. Ten seconds later, the Passat crashed into a police car, killing everyone at the scene, including Blades and Clough. At the junction of Church Lane and the A66, a retired steelworker named Joe looked at the bouquets left for the two officers. He was reluctant to give his surname because of what he called “the lunatics”. Joe remembered when the steelworks stood directly across the road and provided work for much of the community. He said the old police stations in South Bank and Eston had disappeared and argued that criminal gangs had been allowed to operate with drugs passing between them for years. Yet beneath the anger and fear, residents insist the area cannot be reduced to its darkest moments. The problems facing Teesside are part of a wider struggle with gangs and organised crime seen in places including Naples, Baltimore and Liverpool. And there are flashes of something very different. In South Bank, near the A66 junction, the Saabat Gallery was established by Iraqi artist and Teesside University graduate Azad Karim Mohammed. The gallery is currently showing and selling work by local artists Rita Readman and David Watson. Its coordinator, Nathaniel McGovern, has spent five years there and says the community remains warm, welcoming and willing to help. “It has been a mad week for everyone round here,” he said. But his message was simple: “you get nice people and bad people everywhere”. His verdict on South Bank was equally clear: “I’d say this area’s got more nice people than bad.” 'This place might look bad but it's not': Fear and hope in Middlesbrough community after week of violence
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