Middlesbrough dad charged with A66 crash funeral assault

The father of one of the five men who were killed in a wrong-way crash with a police car has been charged with assaulting someone at his son's funeral.

Gye Worthy, 39, was arrested at Teesside Crematorium in Middlesbrough following a disturbance during the service on Wednesday.

His son Cole Worthy, 17, died when the Volkswagon Passat he and four others were in collided with a marked armed police car on the A66 in South Bank in the early hours of 22 August.

Cleveland Police said Gye Worthy has been charged with common assault and obstructing police and is due to appear at Teesside Magistrates' Court in October.

Cole Worthy's funeral was held on the same day as that of PC Matthew Blades, 37, who was one of the officers killed in the crash.

PC Blades had been travelling along the A66 with his colleague PC Tom Clough when their car was struck head-on by the Passat travelling in the wrong direction.

The pair were in a vehicle looking for the Passat after its cloned registration plates triggered a camera, although they were not involved in the pursuit which preceded the crash, according to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

The others killed in the Passat were Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Jakub Matusiak, 23, Makai Saddington, 18, and 17-year-old Theo Rae.

It later emerged a property on a street in Acklam, Middlesbrough, linked to the Worthy family had been rammed by a car shortly before the fatal crash.

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