Cleveland Police arrest seven men in Grangetown operation

Officers said four men, aged 35, 25, 40 and 21, were being held on suspicion of criminal damage with intent to endanger life after a vehicle crashed into a house in Steele Crescent, in South Bank in the early hours of Thursday (August 27).

They were also being questioned over alleged arson after a caravan was set alight in Atlee Road on Wednesday morning, and a drugs offence.

A wall stands demolished at a property on Steele Crescent, in South Bank, Middlesbrough, this morning following an overnight garden wall ramming just a stone’s throw from the devastating blaze in which killed two (Image: SUPPLIED)

The force said the men were in a vehicle when they were stopped by police on Kingsley Road in Grangetown on Thursday night.

A quantity of class A drugs has been seized, officers confirmed.

Police officers at the scene of a fatal crash involving a police car and a Volkswagen Passat on the A66 in South Bank, near Middlesbrough (Owen Humphreys/PA) (Image: SUPPLIED)

The three other men arrested were a 23-year-old man, on suspicion of threats to kill, a 42-year-old on suspicion of threats to kill and possession of criminal property, and a 30-year-old on suspicion of possession of criminal property.

All three have been released on conditional bail.

Pc Matthew Blades, 37, and Pc Tom Clough, 38, (Image: CLEVELAND POLICE)

It brings the total number of people arrested since the crash to 24.

Earlier on Friday, detectives confirmed they are not linking a house fire which killed a seven-year-old girl and her aunt to the A66 crash which killed seven people, including two police officers.

Hundreds of extra police officers have been drafted in to support officers after a series of recent incidents in the Middlesbrough and County Durham area – starting with the head-on crash that killed PCs Matthew Blades, 37, and Tom Clough, 38, and five young men.