STARING into the eyes of a balaclava-clad gang, I saw not a shred of remorse.
They laughed as they told how they broke into people’s homes to find car keys – taking along weapons they were willing to use – before taunting cops to chase them in high-speed pursuits.
A gang we spoke to showed no remorse Credit: Media News GNP Ltd
One TikTokers shows off his danger speed
The gang even boasted of rigging up MOBILITY SCOOTERS, swapping out engines to make them go up to 70mph in a bid to mock police.
Their dangerous antics could easily kill – as evidenced by the weekend deaths of two hero police officers when a car carrying five young men smashed into them.
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Yet they simply don’t care.
One gang member casually told us: “It gets the adrenaline going, dunnit?”
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Their attitude is the culmination of a toxic culture in which cravings for TikTok likes override everything else.
A quick look on the site – in fact any social media platform – is sobering.
In one clip, a man films himself on his phone with just one hand on the wheel, the driver’s speedometer hits 178mph and the motorway becomes a blur.
In another video, the same motorist hits 109mph while a small child strapped into a toddler seat beside him rubs his tired eyes and drinks from a baby bottle.
When grown adults are prepared to put their pre-school children at risk for a little bit of kudos on social media, society has hit a new low.
As part of a month long investigation into ‘balaclava boys’ terrorising Britain I saw first hand just how nonchalant these young men have become.
They boasted to me of ‘ragging’ cars and bikes – driving them as fast as possible – before ‘decamping’, or dumping vehicles before running off.
They wear balaclavas in the hope they won’t ever be prosecuted, with a ‘no face, no case’ motto.
One told us: “I’ve got about 700 followers. You can just rag a car and annoy the cops and you get loads of people watching on TikTok.
“It gets the adrenalin going.”
Scarily, one of the youths produced a serrated weapon he kept down his trouser leg, telling me it was for “protection” against anyone who caught him up to no good.
Another teen told me how they sell cars to organised crime gangs for as little as £300, with Nissans and Audis their vehicle of choice.
They said: “There’s nowt better to do and this is a way to make money, innit?
“If you get a good car you can sell it for fo £300 or £400 and motorbikes for about £200.
“That’s good money for us. Nissan Qasshqai is a good’un to sell easily.”
Yet cops are reluctant to chase those on powerful bikes if kids remove their helmets – a fact gangs are well aware of.
One senior officer told us: “No traffic officer is going to chase some teenager without a helmet because they’d be to blame if there was a fatality.”
A video posted on TikTok by one of the Middlesborough smash teens Credit: TikTok
Teen gangs taunt cops into chases
The antics of these gangs is dangerous beyond belief but ‘flexing’ (showing off) their ‘skills’ has more value than any innocent life.
Under hashtags such as #smoked and #chased, social media videos reveal blue-light night pursuits through residential areas while other drivers are brazen enough to torment police during the day, driving past them at ridiculous speeds.
It’s become a dangerous game in a world where validation on TikTok is the norm for Generation Z.
The Government has now warned social media giants to take down clips of dangerous drivers after horrendous A66 crash in MIddlesborough at the weekend.
In Ireland last month, five teenagers were killed and three sisters and a child left fighting for their lives in hospital after a similar horrendous crash.
Downing Street today said it had raised the problem of the “glorification of dangerous driving” with social media giants since the A66 smash – warning it will take “tough action” if platforms fail to get a grip.
Defence minister Luke Pollard called on firms like Meta to step up, saying: “They’ve argued for many years they don’t need to be regulated, that they can police themselves. So this is the challenge for them.
“Remove that content.
“They know exactly what content is on their site. They know how their algorithm works. They also know that people post content to get views.”
He said content creators were being given a “financial incentive” to post “outrageous content.”
Statistics reveal that one in seven drivers aged 17 to 24 use mobile phones to record videos or take pictures while driving. The research, from charity IAM RoadSmart, also show that one in six go on social media while behind the wheel.
Policy director Nicholas Lyes said kids are also trying to use a loophole to stop their content being taken down.
PC Matthew Blades was killed in the A66 crash Credit: PA
PC Clough was also killed when the car smashed into his marked police vehicle. Credit: PA
The scene of the devastating smash which is now being investigated Credit: PA
Outpouring of love for the officers with tributes at Cleveland Police HQ in Middlesbrough Credit: PA
He said: “Social media companies have a duty to ensure that dangerous criminal activities are not circulated for likes and shares.
“Many of the accounts label content ‘AI generated’ in an apparent attempt to reduce the risk of removal by moderators.”
At least one of the five young men who died in the Middlesbrough crash, Jakub Matusiak, 23, had posted apparent dangerous driving content on TikTok. The other four dead passengers were named as Makai Saddington, 18, Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Theo Rae, 17 and Cole Robert Worthy, 17.
Police had been chasing their Volkswagen Passat for almost seven minutes before aborting the pursuit when it started travelling down the wrong side of the road.
TikTokers revel in police chases
Saddington was facing police charges Credit: Facebook/Makai Saddington
Seconds later the Passat hit a second police car, killing innocent PC’s Matthew Blades, 37, and Tom Clough, 38, an ex-soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s since emerged that Saddington was awaiting trial on charges of racially abusing and assaulting officers.
His social media activity has also since come under scrutiny, with clips appearing to show him taking part in high-speed police chases months before the crash.
Matusiak also posted a video of himself apparently driving erratically through a housing estate in May, with the caption: ‘Unfortunately I’m not a nonchalant boyfriend’.
The clip, seemingly filmed by the driver himself, shows a car speeding through a residential area in broad daylight, before veering onto a green in the middle of a housing estate. The vehicle appears to head down a path as the driver steers with the hand not holding the camera.
In Ireland, three sisters and a young boy are still fighting for survival after a BMW driving the wrong way down the M9 hit their car.
Ella Hendricken, who is in her 20s, and Niamh and Alma Kinsella, in their 30s, and Alma’s seven-year-old son Yemi were badly injured in the crash near Moone, Co Kildare on August 16.
The BMW driver and passengers were also killed and named as Joey Carthy, 15, Alex McCarthy, 16, Jack Kennedy and Kamil Pustkowski, both 17, and Jeremy O’Brien, 18.
Jeremy’s mum Margaret Berry, 36, told the Irish Jattvibe: “This tragedy should never have happened.
“I’m not proud of what happened and I don’t condone what they did – I wish my son had never got into that car.
“I also hope that the family who remain in hospital can find some kind of forgiveness some day . I will continue to pray for them. My son and those other boys didn’t set out that night to intentionally hurt people and my heart will always break for everyone who’s involved in this nightmare.”
The boys apparently identified with the so-called “Lucky Dip” gang, a loosely organised group police believe is behind a large number of carjacking and dangerous driving incidents near Dublin.
Like the young men killed in Middlesborough, some had posted clips of themselves being pursued by blue lights as loud music blared.
They uploaded videos weaving in and out of traffic with one including the caption ‘wrong way’.
Some had written Lucky Dip onto their social media profiles – alluding to a gang operating in Ireland which pick an area at random, break into houses and steal cars.
It’s a trend that is expected to spread across the UK.
Retired Scotland Yard DCI Mick Neville said: “It’s a contagion so I’ve no doubt that some idiots somewhere are thinking, ‘we’ll have a go at that’.
“For the criminals they get to pass their tips on how to do it, and they get the bravado effect of people liking it.”
TikTok today removed content flagged by The Jattvibe and said it removes harmful content. The site said it was also monitoring content related to the smash that killed two police officers.
Snapchat said reckless driving had “no place” on its platform while Meta said it bans damaging content and restricts under 18s from seeing some posts.
Social media dangers
Unbelievably, there is no automatic duty for social media giants to take down dangerous driving posts.
Platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat must remove content that comes under a criminal offence such as child sex abuse, terrorism or non-consensual intimate images such as AI deepfakes under the new Online Safety Act.
Otherwise it is up to firms themselves to assess what is inappropriate content and take it down fast.
But there are duties on providers to protect children against content deemed to be harmful, even if it is not classed as illegal.
Dangerous stunts and challenges sit alongside bullying and abusive or hateful content in the “priority” category of harmful content.
Regulations, published alongside the Act which passed into law in 2023, listed “content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for a challenge or stunt highly likely to result in serious injury to the person who does it or to someone else”.
Online platforms must minimise children’s exposure to such content, online safety regulator Ofcom said.
However some providers, such as TikTok, said their own policies strictly prohibit content that could cause significant physical harm, including dangerous driving.
It said it actively removes any videos and accounts that break its rules.
TikTok removed some of content The Jattvibe sent today, including the 78mph driver.
According to a spokesperson, between January and March this year the site removed 99.1percent of harmful violent and criminal content before it was flagged to them.
A Snapchat spokesperson said: “Our deepest sympathies are with the families who are grieving this devastating loss.
“Content depicting dangerous or illegal activity, including reckless driving, has no place on Snapchat and is prohibited by our Community Guidelines. We’ve removed content that we located related to this incident for violation of our policies.”
Meta said it bans people from “promoting” high risk challenges and dangerous driving, taking down content. It also restricts under-18s from viewing “content that isn’t suitable for them” including posts by reckless motorists.
Bereaved family members have warned about the dangers of drivers filming reckless stunts for social media.
In May, Denise Doyle spoke publicly after her partner, Sylvester Abayomi, 50, was killed in Manchester. The two men responsible had filmed themselves inhaling nitrous oxide and driving at up to 139mph.
“Sylvester was simply on his way to work,” Denise said.
“An ordinary hard-working man. He should have returned home to me safely that day. Because of your actions he never did.”
Addressing the defendants in court, she added: “You left Sylv to die alone. You did not show him even a shred of compassion or humanity.”
Dafydd Hughes, 18, also lost his life after getting into a car with an unlicensed and intoxicated friend in Wales in May 2022, who posted his reckless driving on social media.
Snapchat footage showed driver Ricky Davies drinking cider and smoking drugs behind the wheel.
His mum Emma later urged other youngsters to learn from the tragedy.
“Dafydd, like most young boys, thought he was invincible, and made the wrong choice getting in the car that morning,” said mum-of-six Emma, 35.
“But it wasn’t Dafydd’s choice for Ricky to drink all day, to speed or be on the wrong side of the road. I’ll never forgive Ricky.”
Months earlier, 17-year-old Nadia Yusuf was killed in Manchester. Rohail Jillani had filmed himself for Snapchat while inhaling nitrous oxide and driving at up to 98mph.
But while these incidents used to be rare, campaigners warn that they have dramatically increased in recent months.
Youth justice figures show that 11percent of ‘proven offences’ committed by 15 to 17-year-olds are linked to motoring – around 3,500.
It appears a surprisingly low number but perhaps not when you consider how many car thefts police solve – with around just one in every 40 resulting in a charge or court action.
Whatever the real figures, the reality is that this deadly trend fueled by social media is likely to result in even more tragedies.
Additional reporting by Thea Jacobs and Luke Chafer.
