Keady fire victims were 'beaten'

The man who died after he and his girlfriend were doused in petrol and set on fire last week, had also been beaten with a claw hammer, the High Court has today heard.

Thomas O'Hare, 33, died on Friday from injuries sustained during the attack, which happened at his home in the Foley Road, Tassagh in Keady, County Armagh,

His girlfriend, 21-year-old Lisa McClatchey, remains in a critical condition in the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast.

David Harold Graham, 43, of Shergrim Glen, Omagh, appeared at the High Court in Belfast today to apply for bail after being remanded in custody yesterday charged with withholding information and perverting the course of justice. He denied the charges.

Mr Graham, the only man so far charged in connection with the incident, was today released on bail of £1,000.

During the bail application, the court learned that Mr O'Hare had been beaten with a claw or sledge hammer and an attempt was made to tie him up. Ms McClatchey was also beaten.

Crown counsel David Reid told the court that after the couple were assaulted, they were doused in petrol, which was also doused around the house and a fire started.

He added: "Miss McClatchey escaped and in doing so her clothes and her body were set on fire. She ran to a neighbour`s house and raised the alarm.

"Mr O'Hare also escaped from the house. He was discovered in the garden with both his clothes and body on fire."

Mr Reid continued by saying that Mr Graham, a second-hand car dealer, had lent one of the four people in hospital in Dublin a car on the evening of the attack and it had since been found burnt out close to the scene.

A defence lawyer told the High Court Mr Graham, was “very much on the periphery” of what had happened.

(EF)