Father of A66 crash victim arrested after missing sentencing hearing in Middlesbrough

Gye Worthy, 40, failed to appear at Teesside Crown Court to be sentenced for assaulting a funeral celebrant at his son's service. An arrest warrant was issued without bail.

A66 crash victim's father held after skipping court over funeral assault

The father of a teenager killed in a fatal head-on collision with a police car on the A66 has been arrested after failing to appear at court, bbc.co.uk reports.

Gye Worthy, 40, of Ruskin Avenue, Middlesbrough, was due to be sentenced at Teesside Crown Court on Tuesday for common assault against a funeral celebrant and for resisting arrest. He did not attend and had not spoken to his solicitors or offered any explanation for his absence, the court heard.

Deputy District Judge Julia Baggs granted a prosecution application for an arrest warrant "not backed by bail", meaning Worthy would be held in custody ahead of any future court date.

Worthy had previously admitted assaulting celebrant Paul Maull during the funeral service for his son Cole, 17, held at Teesside Crematorium in Middlesbrough on 9 September. He was also due to be sentenced at the same hearing for stealing four bottles of wine worth £30 from a shop on 8 October.

Cole was one of seven people killed on 22 August when the Volkswagen Passat he was travelling in struck a marked police car head-on on the A66 in South Bank. Among the dead were PC Matthew Blades, 37, and his colleague PC Tom Clough. The pair had been in their vehicle searching for the Passat after its cloned registration plates triggered a camera; they were not part of the pursuit that preceded the crash, according to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

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

Cole's funeral took place on the same day as the service for PC Blades. It later emerged that the Worthy family home in Acklam had been rammed by a car shortly before the A66 crash.

Source: Google News UK — Crime (en)