A WOMAN and her former boyfriend burst into tears yesterday when they were cleared of killing her baby daughter who died in a house fire.
Charmaine Irene Agnew (26), from Fermanagh, and William McLaughlin (25) were accused of the manslaughter by gross negligence of eight-month-old Chelsea Agnew who died in the fire started by her 2½-year-old brother in their Drumbawn home in Enniskillen.
It took the Dungannon Crown Court jury of eight men and four women less than an hour to unanimously acquit Agnew, from the Drumbawn housing estate, and McLaughlin, of Florence Square, Belfast.
Margaret-Anne Dinsmore QC, prosecuting, claimed that Chelsea’s brother, a toddler, had a fascination with cigarette lighters and started the fire as his mother and her boyfriend slept in the bedroom they all shared.
It was his frantic screams of “mummy, daddy” which woke the couple who managed to escape with him.
Ms Agnew and Mr McLaughlin told police of their doomed efforts to save Chelsea.
Both described how they could see “smoke and fire around Chelsea’s cot” yet as they reached out to rescue her they were met by a wall of fire which “just shot up”, forcing them to retreat.
In a statement, Ms Agnew said she had “loved Chelsea with all my heart and not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. The past two years and nine months have been a living hell. I have to move on with my life now as best I can for my son and myself.”