Fire death father was treated for depression

A father who killed himself and six other family members when he set fire to their home was treated for depression two months before the fatal blaze, a coroner’s court heard today.

A doctor outlined Arthur McElhill’s state of mind prior to the incident as firefighters described for the first time the horrific scenes that met them inside the gutted terraced house in Omagh, Co Tyrone in the wake of the inferno.

The 36-year-old convicted sex offender, who had a history of suicide attempts, torched the property using petrol and white spirits after his partner Lorraine McGovern apparently threatened to leave him.

The couple and their five children all died in the fire in November 2007.

Dr Michelle Mellotte told the second day of the inquest into the seven deaths that she had prescribed Mr McElhill with anti-depressants nine weeks before the incident.

The GP also confirmed to coroner Suzanne Anderson that he had tried to take his life before – notably in 1988 when he drove a car into a wall.

“He was really down and depressed,” the doctor said of his mental condition in September 2007.

However, the medic said she did not believe that he was suicidal at that stage.

She said she met him in the street a week later and he appeared in good form.

Relatives from both the extended McElhill and McGovern families listened to the doctor’s evidence from opposite sides of the court room.

Later a number appeared visibly distressed as firefighters who tried in vain the save the family recounted the moments they discovered the seven charred bodied in the upstairs rooms.

Crew commander David Canning said nothing in his career could have prepared him for the graphic scenes that greeted him.

“I haven’t seen anything like it in my 18 years as a firefighter,” he noted in a written statement read to the court.