Gardaí fear gang reprisals after Waterford family is killed in 'petrol bomb' attack over ANOTHER person's €20,000 drug debt
A house on Birchwood Avenue in Waterford City, where a suspected petrol bomb attack in the early hours of Tuesday killed a man, a woman and two of their children.Kim English, one of four family members killed when a drug gang firebombed their Waterford home, had begged the council for a transfer, telling officials the family was "living in fear.
Philip and Kim English and their sons Callum, 12, and Jayden, nine — who had undergone heart surgery just two weeks earlier — were killed when a gang firebombed their home on the Birchwood estate in Waterford at 5am on Tuesday. John James English, Philip's son from a previous relationship, says the family were innocent and the debt was owed by someone else entirely. Two surviving children, Nadia, 14, and Elliot, six, remain critically ill at Children's Health Ireland Crumlin in Dublin.
Gardaí believe three brothers connected to a significant organised crime gang ordered the attack, and fear further violence in Waterford.
'Twenty grand worth of a debt — is that worth four lives?' John James English told RTÉ, saying his father had no involvement in drugs or crime.
The family had been seeking a council house transfer to escape the intimidation, and their car had already been petrol-bombed the previous month.
