Report: Services failed Omagh fire-tragedy family

Welfare services involved with the family of registered sex offender Arthur McElhill, who killed himself and his family when he set fire to their Omagh home, were guilty of a series of failings, an investigation into the deaths found today.

Heavy drinking depressive McElhill, 36, who doused the downstairs hallway with petrol when his partner threatened to leave him, tried to commit suicide as far back as 1988 before becoming involved in a number of attacks on teenage girls, the report on the Omagh fire tragedy revealed.