British police said on Monday they had arrested 12 people after a car pursued by police crashed while driving the wrong way on a major road, killing five youths and two officers.

The deaths on Saturday came as officials warned of a trend for young people to carry out dangerous driving stunts to post on social media. However, police on Monday denied the collision was linked to filming for the TikTok online platform.

Police in the Cleveland area of north-east England said there was "no evidence to indicate that filming of the activities on Friday night and Saturday morning has taken place for the purposes of TikTok."

The force revealed that officers were chasing two cars with cloned plates when the deadly accident occurred. It added that 12 have since been arrested on suspicion of participating in an organised crime group and weapon possession.

The crash came days after five teenagers were killed in Ireland while their car drove the wrong way on a motorway.

Irish police chief Justin Kelly commented that "what makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases it is being done for social media."

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Monday – while visiting Kyiv – that "anybody who glorifies dangerous driving is doing something that's truly reprehensible and unacceptable."

Downing Street said the government had "raised the issue of this appalling content with social media companies," including TikTok.

Britain's communications regulator Ofcom last month launched an investigation into whether TikTok is doing enough under UK law to protect children from harmful content, focusing on its age checks.

According to TikTok, it strictly prohibits content that could cause significant physical harm including dangerous driving and proactively removes such content.

Ofcom said in a statement on Monday that under the Online Safety Act, "platforms must minimise children's exposure to violent material and content promoting dangerous challenges."

The watchdog said it had shown it would "take action if evidence suggests companies are falling short."

National Highways for England said there were 947 reports of wrong-way driving in the year ending May 2026, slightly down on the previous year.

Irish police said there have been 62 such incidents so far this year with no marked recent increase. (AFP)



Edited by Cecil Wong