Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly has said more arrests will soon be made over the murders of four members of the English family in Waterford, which he described as “an absolutely horrendous crime”.
Kelly said the criminal investigation into the murders of Philip and Kim English, and their children Callum (12) and Jayden (9) last Tuesday morning, had already made very “significant progress”.
Seven homes have been searched – with vehicles and phones seized for examination – while two people had been arrested and remained in custody.
Gardaí locally were “quite satisfied” with the evidence gathered and had firm intelligence on the drugs gang suspected of involvement, Kelly told reporters at the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, on Friday.
He said drugs gangs could not be allowed to threaten, attack and extort people “with impunity”.
Philip and Kim English died, along with their sons Callum and Jayden, after an arson attack on their home in the Birchwood estate, Waterford City, just after 5am on Tuesday.
Two of other children – a girl (14) and a boy (6) – were rescued from the house and are in a critical condition in hospital.
The family had been targeted in the past, including a petrol bombing last month, by a local crime gang trying to extort €20,000 from them to pay a drugs debt incurred by somebody else.
The first arrests in the case were made on Thursday when a man (20s) and woman (30s) were detained on suspicion of being directly involved in the attack and facilitating the crime gang.
Both Kelly and Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan, who was also at the Garda College for a graduation ceremony, said if victims of drug-related intimidation contacted gardaí they would no longer be unprotected.
“They were horrific events that we saw and I think it was a watershed moment,” said O’Callaghan. “We see a family of six people attacked, attempts made to kill, and four of them murdered and two in a critical condition. What’s fuelling this is drugs and this has to be a watershed moment, not just for the Garda or Government, politicians, it has to be for the public as well.
“People who are this weekend taking cocaine need to recognise they are funding organised crime that’s involved in murdering people for debts of €20,000.
“By taking drugs, by funding the drugs industry, you are supporting the horrific events we saw in Waterford . . . funding the criminal gangs that murdered. People would want to get (that link) and they’d want to get it fairly rapidly.”
O’Callaghan appealed to victims of drug-related intimidation to “have faith in the Garda” and report the crimes because “if people don’t report it to gardaí, they are very much on their own”. He said supports are available if they come forward.
Though it was hard for victims, O’Callaghan said if they gave in to the extortion of gangs and paid them, rather than going to gardaí, the gangs “will just keep coming back for more”.
“This was a very difficult crime,” Kelly said of the degree of violence involved and the fact four people, including children, had been killed.
“Drugs-related intimidation is part of the drugs business . . . in every country – this isn’t unique to Ireland,” he said, reiterating the Minister’s call for people being pressured and targeted with violence to reach out to gardaí.
“You can come forward confidentially. You don’t [have to] come to a Garda station if you don’t want to; we will meet you elsewhere. We’ve got dedicated, trained experts, with an inspector in every division all around the country trained to deal with these [cases].”
Kelly implored ”people not to be on their own”, adding a range of options could be pursued and that victims did not have to go to court and give evidence if they did not want to.
But he accepted “people are going to be afraid”, with events such as those in Waterford this week adding to fears around repercussions.
The Garda had prosecuted many criminals for drug-related intimidation and would do so again, he said, while also acknowledging the nature of the violence was changing.
“What we have certainly seen is an increase in use of incendiary devices, petrol bombs. We are very concerned around that. We have increased our targeting, not just against the higher-level drugs and crime groups, but some of the medium-sized ones as well. It’s difficult because often people have outsourced the debt and there’s different layers.”
Kelly and O’Callaghan were speaking to the media at a passing-out ceremony for 207 Garda recruits on Friday at the Garda College. The graduation brought the number of Garda members to 14,825, the highest in the history of the State.