00:01A 23-year-old man has been charged with the murders of a woman and her seven-year-old niece
00:05following a house fire in Grangetown. Natalie MacDonald, who was 34, and her niece Valentina
00:11Foster died in the blaze. The man's also been charged with serious assault offences relating
00:15to people injured in the fire. He faces two counts of murder, two counts of grievous bodily harm with
00:21intent, and two counts of attempted grievous bodily harm with intent. He's due to appear
00:25at Teesside Magistrates Court. The charges mark the latest development in an investigation which
00:30has brought further grief to a community already dealing with a series of serious incidents.
00:35Police are continuing to appeal for information about the fire, and the investigation is separate
00:40from the fatal crash on the A66 which claims seven lives, including Cleveland police officers,
00:45PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough, and five young men travelling in a Volkswagen Passat.
00:51Police say the Passat was travelling in the wrong direction when it collided with a marked
00:54police vehicle. The circumstances of that collision, including the actions of police before and after
00:59the crash, are being investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct. There's also been a wider
01:04police operation looking at suspended, serious and organised crime connected with the circumstances
01:10surrounding the A66 incident. Cleveland Police says 27 people have been arrested as part of that
01:16operation, and more than 200 additional officers have also been brought into the area to support
01:20policing. So while the Grangetown Fire and the A66 crash as separate investigations, both have
01:25happened against a backdrop of concern about serious crime across Cleveland. The latest official figures
01:31show Cleveland recorded 123.4 crimes for every thousand people in the year to March 2026. That was the
01:38highest rate recorded by any police force in England or Wales. The figure across England and Wales was
01:4284.7. Violence and sexual offences made up the largest category of recorded crime in Cleveland,
01:48while the area also recorded high rates of offences including shoplifting, criminal damage and arson and
01:54burglary. Middlesbrough itself also has a high recorded crime rate compared with many other local
01:59authorities. But those figures need to be treated carefully. They measure crimes recorded by police
02:04rather than the number of people who have been victims. They can also be affected by how and where
02:08crimes reported and recorded, and by the number of people who come into an area during the day to work,
02:13shop or socialise. What the figures do show is the scale of demand facing Cleveland police. The force
02:19has to respond to major investigations such as the Grangetown Fire and the A66 crash, while continuing to
02:24deal with the everyday crimes reported across Middlesbrough and the wider area. For local people
02:29though, the statistics are only part of the picture. Feeling safe can depend on what people see and
02:33experience in their own neighbourhood, whether they feel comfortable walking home, using the town centre or
02:38letting their children go out. The recent deaths in Grangetown and on the A66 have brought those
02:43questions into sharper focus. The murder charges will now be tested through the courts, while the
02:48A66 investigation continues and police maintain the wider operation. And for communities across
02:53Cleveland, alongside the number of crimes recorded, the question remains a personal one. How safe do people
02:58actually feel in their homes?
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