Waterford arson suspect was JUST OUT OF JAIL and paid 'few hundred euro' to firebomb family home, gardaí believe
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.
A man gardaí believe threw the petrol bomb that killed Kim and Philip English and their sons Callum, 12, and Jayden, nine, had been released from prison only shortly before the attack and received just a few hundred euro to carry out it out. A woman arrested with him is suspected of driving the getaway vehicle — her own car. Both are being held under organised crime legislation and may be kept in custody for as long as seven days before any charges are brought.
Son John James English told RTÉ the family were targeted over a €20,000 drug debt belonging to somebody else altogether — 'innocent' people who had no connection to drugs whatsoever.
The English home had been firebombed on a previous occasion, three weeks before the night the family were killed, and Philip's first wife Anne had also been forced out of her home by an intimidation campaign waged by the same gang.
Nadia, 14, and Elliot, six, the two children who survived, are critically ill at Children's Health Ireland Crumlin; a joint funeral for the family is scheduled for Monday in Waterford.
