Secondments Follow McElhill Tragedy

It has been revealed that senior social workers have now been seconded to work with the North's police in order to prevent a repetition of the failings which led to the McElhill fire tragedy.

Sinn Féin Policing Board member Martina Anderson said: "The Toner report carried out into this tragedy made 63 recommendations – two of which directly related to the police.

"In my capacity as a Board member it is appropriate for me to monitor and evaluate the PSNI's progress towards implementing those recommendations and taking whatever other steps are required to amend their practices and procedures in order to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.

"That is why I raised this with the Chief Constable and the PSNI have now responded by confirming that a pilot scheme will be launched in the coming weeks where senior social workers will be seconded to work directly with the eight PSNI Public Protection Units," she revealed today.

"This will allow for the ready and continual exchange of information to protect the vulnerable and, hopefully, end the kind of disastrous breakdown in communication which led to the McEhill tragedy.

"The PSNI is also examining the feasibility of an automatic alert system that will flag any call, regardless of nature, to the address of a Registered Sex Offender.

"Again, this will help ensure that people like Arthur McElhill, who was a clear danger to children, are not allowed to slip through the net," the politician continued.

"The horrific nature of the McElhill tragedy is almost unspeakable and there is nothing that any of us can now do to put that right.

"However, we all have a responsibility to ensure that the lessons of this tragedy are learned and that every agency puts in place new measures to prevent any recurrence."

Last year, the tragic death of the entire McElhill family at the hands of their sex offendor 'dad' in Omagh two years ago saw politicians revising measures about child protection in future similar situations.

Michael McGimpsey, the Stormont Health & Social Services Minister asked the lawyer, Henry Toner to verify whether all recommendations from his original report about the Lammy tragedy have been implemented.


Mr Toner's detailed Independent Review published last July criticized deficits around communication between the different agencies about the problems in McElhill's family.

Following it, he made 55 recommendations and, last December, the Western Trust had already put 54 of them in practice.

Mr McGimpsey expressed his hope that, although it was not his intention to wait for a tragedy to drive improvement, he hopes at least any lesson can be learned from this.

See: Learn From Lammy Tragedy: McGimpsey

(BMCC/GK)