Nurse, in her 30s, is being ‘treated for self-inflicted injuries’ after toddler is stabbed to death and baby seriously hurt at rural farmhouse in Northern Ireland
- Woman has been named locally as Fiona McGowan who is thought to be a nurse
- Police said a woman in her 30s and a baby are currently receiving treatment
- Officers surrounded the property at 10am on Monday and are investigating
A child has died and a woman and another young child are fighting for their lives after a stabbing in Northern Ireland.
The woman has been named locally as Fiona McGowan and it is believed she is currently being treated for ‘self-inflicted injuries’.
Police in Larne have said they are not looking for anyone else but have launched an investigation following the incident.
Ms McGowan is in her 30s and she is currently in hospital receiving treatment for injuries. Officers said a baby is also being treated.
Ms McGowan is believed to work in the area as a nurse and locals said that she lived at the farmhouse with two children, one aged one-and-a-half and another ‘not much older’.
Officers were called to the farmhouse (picture above) on Monday morning. A woman and a baby are currently receiving treatment in hospital
Forensic officers at the scene of a major incident at a farmhouse in Bankhall Road, Larne on Monday
They added that Ms McGowan lived at the property as part of the ‘family of four’.
Emergency services arrived in the rural area at around 10am yesterday. Locals said a family have been renting the farmhouse for a year or so.
A neighbour the children are ‘beautiful and very young’.
‘I’ve spoken to the man once, but they generally keep themselves to themselves,’ she added.
Another woman who said she knows the family who live at the property at the end of a country lane overlooking Larne Lough, said the mother of the family is a nurse.
Police in Bankhall Road, Larne at the scene of a major incident at a farmhouse in County Antrim on Monday
The scene, in the hamlet of Magheramorne, five miles from Larne, remained cordoned off on Monday afternoon and officers in forensics suits were spotted
She described the news as ‘shocking’. ‘You just wouldn’t believe it,’ she told the Belfast Telegraph.
Police and forensics officers were at the scene yesterday. Neighbour Rhonda Kernohan said: ‘I heard the sirens and the helicopter, the air ambulance, came and it landed up at the back of the farm.
‘We thought it was a farm accident but when we looked out there was a lot of shouting and a lot of police, a lot of ambulances about.’
She added: ‘This is a quiet, rural, peaceful area.’
Another neighbour said the woman who lived at the house was a ‘youngish girl’.
Police have released few details, but today confirmed that a woman in her 30s and a baby were receiving treatment
Police set up a checkpoint to the entrance to a property in Bankhall Road, Larne on Monday
They added: ‘It was very sad. We are feeling absolutely awful, so sad it is terrible. The shock of it, when it happens nearly on your doorstep.’
Another resident told the Belfast Telegraph that emergency services arrived in the rural area at around 10am on Monday and that those from the area are ‘taken aback’ by the size of the emergency services operation.
Neighbours were alerted to the scene upon hearing an Air Ambulance and PSNI helicopter.
Reacting to the news, Alliance Party MLA for East Antrim Stewart Dickson called the situation ‘profoundly sad’ and added that his ‘thoughts are with all concerned and the close knit community as they come to terms with the trauma.’
One neighbour said they hadn’t been aware there were children in the property.
DUP assembly member Gordon Lyons added that the incident had ‘clearly been something horrific’ and added: ‘It is absolutely awful when you hear of anybody suffering in this kind of way but when young children are involved it is particularly horrific.’
Sources have said a young child has died and another child and a woman have sustained serious injuries
Neighbours were alerted to the scene upon hearing an Air Ambulance and PSNI helicopter