Flares were fired by masked motorcyclists for a 23-year-old man killed in last weekend’s wrong-way crash on the A66 dual carriageway in England.

Jakub Matusiak was one of the five teenagers and young men travelling in the wrong direction inside a Volkswagen Passat near Middlesbrough in the early hours of Saturday morning when they collided with a police car, killing everyone involved.

The Volkswagen went down the wrong way on the A66 to evade police, who had called off the chase just seconds before it collided with a separate oncoming police unit.

Police officers Tom Clough and Matthew Blades were killed in the incident, along with Makai Saddington, 18, Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Theo Rae, 17, Cole Robert Worthy, 17, and Matusiak.

On Monday, people gathered in a field in the South Bank neighbourhood of Middlesbrough, where the fatal crash happened, for a memorial for Matusiak.

They released balloons, many in Matusiak’s favourite colour orange, while around 20 masked young men rode around on scooters and quad bikes and set off flares.

One woman in the group insisted that Matusiak was a ‘lovely, caring lad’ and ‘not some scumbag who should just be written off and forgotten’.

Along with three of the others in the Volkswagen, Matusiak was said to have several convictions and charges, including motoring offences.

The woman added: ‘It was an accident that those police officers died, they weren’t trying to kill anyone and they lost their own lives but they’ve just been written off as if they don’t matter.

‘The number of people who have come out for Jakub today should show you that they do matter, they were loved and they will be missed.’

A fundraiser set up by Cleveland Police to support the families of the two officers who were killed in the crash has reached over £795,000 (€930,000) in donations.

Organisers stated that the funds raised would be split equally between the two families and the police service would continue to provide support.