THE NORTH'S social services were at fault in failing to carry out an assessment in September last year as to whether Arthur McElhill posed a threat to his partner and five children, according to a new independent report.
This failure occurred just two months before the fire which Mr McElhill is believed to have started and which claimed his life and the lives of his partner Lorraine and their five children, aged from nine months to 13 years.
Mr McElhill, who had a history of sexual offences against teenage girls, and of depression, alcohol problems and suicidal tendencies, is suspected of having ignited the fire at the McElhill home at Lammy Crescent in Omagh on November 13th last year.
A 79-page independent report into the circumstances of the fire published yesterday exposed serious flaws in how the Department of Health's social services operations in the North dealt with the issue, and raised the question as to whether, with the proper risk assessment of Mr McElhill, the family could have been saved.
"We believe that social services should have become reinvolved, at least by September 20th (last year)," said Henry Toner, QC, chairman of the five-member review body which carried out the report.
This followed an incident, not of a sexual nature, involving the mother of a teenage girl on September 11th last year. The girl, who was a friend of Caroline and was under the care of the social services, was staying with the McElhills, although not related to them.
Eight days later the PSNI informed social workers of the past offences of Mr McElhill. The following day, on September 20th, the teenage girl was removed from the McElhill home.
Mr Toner said that at that stage, a risk assessment of Mr McElhill should have been ordered. "The fundamental frailty is that there was not a risk assessment of Arthur McElhill," he said.
Asked was it likely that his partner Lorraine McGovern, and five children, Caroline (13), Sean (7), Bellina (4), Clodagh (19 months) and James (9 months) would have been taken into care or removed from the presence of Mr McElhill at that stage, the lawyer replied: "The fundamental frailty is that we cannot give you an answer because there was no risk assessment."
Such an "urgent and immediate" assessment should have taken place, and it was the fault of social services that it had not, Mr Toner added.
His report also found that the social worker assigned on September 24th, 2007, to the case, to replace a departing social worker, "was a new recruit to social work and was immediately allocated the entire workload of the previous social worker.
"There was no evidence of proper management guidance or support to the new social worker" in relation to the overall McElhill case, and that of the teenage girl.
Mr Toner in his report also concluded that notwithstanding these criticisms, the agencies involved with the family had no indication that the tragic event was about to occur.
Asked about his reaction at a human level to the whole tragic case, Mr Toner responded: "I react with the greatest of worry about it on a human level - that the children were not properly protected. And the essential conclusion that we have reached in child protection terms is that the child protection processes did not properly work, and that is a source of great worry."
He said it was a matter for the Western Health and Social Services Trust as to whether disciplinary action should follow from the report. "It is clear that there are serious matters to be considered," Mr Toner said.
A PSNI investigation into the fire is continuing, and Mr McElhill has yet to be formally declared responsible for the fire.
Mr McElhill's parents, Charles and Patricia, said the report raised many "difficult and sensitive issues". They asked for privacy as they came to terms with their "immeasurable loss".
The McGovern family also asked for privacy and hoped no other family would have to endure such tragedy.