Woman killed with niece in Middlesbrough house fire was ‘a beautiful soul’, says mother

Natalie McDonald, 34, and Valentina Foster, seven, died in fire less than mile from A66 crash, with police not ruling out links

A woman who died in a house fire along with her seven-year-old niece has been described as “a beautiful soul”.

Natalie McDonald, 34, died along with her niece Valentina Foster, seven, in the blaze in Grangetown, near Middlesbrough, in the early hours of Wednesday.

The fire was less than a mile from the scene of a crash on the A66 on Saturday that killed seven people, including two police officers. Police have said they are not ruling out links between the two incidents, or connections to organised crime.

Cleveland police have yet to officially name the two people who died in Wednesday’s house fire, but they have been named locally. Lisa Kirton, McDonald’s mother, told the BBC her daughter had been “a beautiful soul, who would have done anything for anybody”.

She was “lovely, bright and bubbly” and “everybody loved her”, she said.

Kirton said Valentina, also known as Tina, had been spending the summer holidays with the family. “She was a cute little kid. I can’t believe it, seven years old – it’s just a disgrace.”

She said McDonald’s 15-year-old daughter and a friend had managed to escape through an upstairs window. The friend, she said, had “kicked out a window” and “had saved their lives”.

Two men, aged 23 and 31, have been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the blaze. They remain in police custody.

The force has not ruled out a link between the fire and the crash, which killed two police officers and five others.

Supt Emily Harrison said: “We continue to work to establish the circumstances of exactly what has happened, but we are keeping an open mind and cannot rule out any links to wider organised crime at this time.”

Separately, police said they were investigating reports of a vehicle crashing into a wall at an empty property in South Bank, near Middlesbrough. No one was injured in the incident shortly after midnight on Thursday.

Harrison said: “Officers are conducting enquiries to establish the circumstances surrounding this incident. Our investigation is in its early stages and it has not yet been confirmed whether this incident is linked to wider organised crime.”

The prime minister, Andy Burnham, said the government would offer “all of the support that the authorities need” after the incidents. On a visit to south Wales, he told reporters it was “too early to jump to conclusions” about whether the fire and the A66 crash were connected.

“The important thing [is], it’s a terribly tragic event that’s happened, with the loss of a young woman and her seven-year-old niece … Utterly devastating. I’m sure there’s a whole community that is grieving.”

Five local Labour MPs said they had met the government’s policing and fire minister to discuss issues of crime and public safety and pressures facing Cleveland police and Cleveland fire service.

Anna Turley, Andy McDonald, Jonathan Brash, Luke Myer and Chris McDonald said that “communities deserve to feel safe”.

The A66 crash in the early hours of Saturday involved a Volkswagen Passat travelling the wrong way before it crashed head-on into a police car. The two police officers who died in the crash were PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38. Inquests into their deaths were formally opened and adjourned by the coroner Paul Appleton in Middlesbrough on Thursday morning.

The brief hearing heard that the provisional cause of death for Blades was head and neck injuries and the provisional cause of death for Clough was neck injuries.

Appleton said that in the early hours of 22 August there was a collision on the A66 at South Bank between a police vehicle and a Volkswagen Passat. He told the hearing that “all occupants of both vehicles were sadly pronounced dead at the scene”.

Appleton said: “At this stage it is understood that there had been a police pursuit of the Volkswagen Passat. It entered the A66 carriageway against the flow of traffic, at which stage the pursuit was aborted. A short time after … the Volkswagen Passat collided with a police vehicle, which had not been directly involved in the prior pursuit.”

In the afternoon, inquests will open into the deaths of Cole Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and Michael Robert Cahill, 23, and Jacob Matusiak, 23, who were in the Passat and pronounced dead at the scene.