My thoughts are with the families, friends and colleagues of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough who were killed in the traffic incident which occurred on the A66 near Middlesbrough. My thoughts are not with the families and friends of the five “youngsters” who died after their car drove the wrong way down a major A-road and crashed into PC’s Blade and Clough’s police car. If this sounds heartless, then I am sorry you feel that way, but I am not sorry I feel that way.
I cannot know any details beyond this and it would not be wise for me to speculate. But the available facts appear to be beyond dispute. A car was driven the wrong way down a major A-road and seven people lost their lives.
According to this story in the Metro newspaper, one of the boys, named as Makai Saddington, “allegedly previously posted several videos on Tik-Tok which appear to show him a high-speed police chase.” I’ll come back to the Tik-Tok aspect in a moment, but I am beginning to feel more than slightly nauseous having read some of the tributes made to the five “youngsters” How about these?
‘You brought so much love and happiness into our family, and your memory will stay with us forever. This loss has left a space in our hearts that can never be filled.”
“He was’ taken way too soon’ and had a ‘heart of gold’, (and was) someone who would have ‘done anything for anyone’. “
“A lovely down to earth lad”.
And so on and so on. It simply isn’t worth me passing comment because you, dear reader, can make your own minds up, but it is hard to attribute the blame for this monstrous incident to the youngsters alone. What in their lives led them to carry out such reckless activities? Well, I cannot imagine poor parenting did not have a role and what about social media? I do not use Tik_Tok but apparently there is a craze among youngsters to drive cars dangerously and to post videos of their exploits on the platform. If – and this is a big if because we await further details – social media in general and Tik-Tok in particular were in any way responsible for this tragedy then surely the state needs to take action to regulate its content. It cannot be right that such crazy, irresponsible actions can carry on, taking the lives of police officers bravely carrying out their jobs, without at the very least a pause for reflection.
Either way, these “lads” are anything but “lovely down to earth lad(s)” and any “love and happiness” they brought into their families has been totally eclipsed by their appalling actions.
Seriously, if your thoughts are with the perpetrators, I cannot help you. Mine are, and always will be, with the good guys, heroes working on behalf of the law-abiding majority, walking towards danger when the rest of us walk away from it. The only tragedy is that the five “youngsters” will never face justice. I suspect that most people won’t care too much about that and frankly it’s hard to not feel that way, too.
