Row breaks out over minister's tribute to all A66 crash victims

A row has broken out after a Home Office minister paid tribute to all seven victims of the deadly A66 crash.

Anna Turley, who is also MP for the area where the crash took place, was accused by shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy of placing five men who were in a car travelling on the wrong side of the road "on a par" with two police officers in an oncoming car they collided with.

All seven died in the crash near Middlesbrough in the early hours of Saturday, which detectives said resulted from "serious criminal activity".

Turley said Cleveland Police "had specifically requested" she pay tribute to all victims in any message. The force declined to confirm or deny this when contacted by the BBC.

In a letter, Turley accused Timothy of having "sought to create media hits and political points" which was "beneath contempt".

She said there was no "moral equivalence, or judgements about worth" in her tribute.

The row centres on a lengthy Facebook post Turley made shortly after the incident, in which she wrote: "This morning I went down to South Bank to lay flowers and pay my respects, on behalf of our whole community, to the seven people whose lives were so tragically cut short yesterday."

Timothy took issue with that in an X post on Monday night, saying he did not wish to "speak ill of the dead" but that "we should be able to see the difference between right and wrong".