Detectives have confirmed they are not linking a house fire which killed a seven-year-old girl and her aunt to a crash on the A66 last weekend which left seven people dead, 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 Pc Matthew Blades, 37, and Pc Tom Clough, 38, and five young men.
