Derrylin fire: 'Strange' story of Daniel Allen who killed family

Denise Gossett, her children Roman and Sabrina and Sabrina's daughter Morgana died in 2018

"It is hard to move on with our lives, and my life will never be the same again."

Those were the words of Samantha Gossett after the sentencing of a man for killing her mother, brother, sister and her niece in County Fermanagh six years ago.

Daniel Sebastian Allen will spend at least 29 years in prison.

It is one of the longest sentences handed down in Northern Ireland in recent years.

The bodies of Denise Gossett, 45, her son Roman, 16, daughter Sabrina, 19, and Sabrina's 15-month-old daughter Morgana Quinn were found in a burnt out cottage in Derrylin.

Harrowing details were revealed in court for the first time but the full story of what happened may never be known.

'Total control over the family'

On the morning of 27 February 2018, people in Derrylin saw smoke and flames from a burning bungalow on the hillside above the town.

Few in the community knew the people who lived there.

Firefighters at the scene of the blaze in Derrylin

They had rented the property on Doon Road for 14 months but rarely went outside.

The teenagers did not go to school or college.

No outsiders were allowed into the house, including the driver who delivered their groceries to the door.

Those who did encounter them did not even know their real names.

Daniel Allen called himself Samuel Quinn. Denise was also known as Crystal. Roman was introduced as Edward.

One neighbour described Allen as having "total control over the family".

Harrowing scene

They lived what was described as an itinerant existence and told people they were trying to flee Denise's ex-husband.

It was more likely they were avoiding social services as they did not want Morgana taken into care, the court heard.

Social services in Northern Ireland only became aware of their presence in February 2018, just days before the killings.

Speaking at the time, their landlord Tommy Fee described how he and his neighbours tried desperately to save those inside the burning bungalow.

He only found out from the court proceedings that three of the victims were already dead before the fire was started.

The scene he encountered was harrowing.

Amid the smoke and flames, Allen was standing outside the front door, shouting: "Don't go in there."

He asked him if anyone was inside and he replied: "Gone, gone."

As burning roof tiles fell on him, Allen refused to move, rocking back and forth trembling.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"They're all gone."

When police arrived, Allen admitted that he had started the fire.

"A promise is a promise," he said.

"I promised to put them to the next life as they didn't want to stay here no more."

'Dangerous and disturbing'

The fire was so intense that at first the police were unable to establish how many people were inside.

It had been started with strips of fabric soaked in heating oil left throughout the house.

Allen told officers he was a paranoid schizophrenic, but he has never been diagnosed with the condition.

The delay of six years in bringing legal proceedings to a conclusion was to allow psychiatric reports to be completed.

However, none supported a defence of diminished responsibility and the judge said that at most they described Allen as having a personality disorder.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge said Allen had a "dangerous and disturbing" character.

Allen initially lived with the family in Scotland, before they moved to Ireland, first to Tralee and then to Cavan before their arrival in Derrylin.

Allen's defence barrister described how he came from England to Northern Ireland to be sentenced for murder as "a sorry tale".

Originally from the Midlands area of England, he lived with his mother and brother after his parents split up.

At the age of 12, he ran away to live with his grandparents in Bristol due to issues at home.

He was said to have had no social life or friends and developed relationships with women on the internet.

In April 2015, he was sentenced to four months in prison in Ipswich for threatening to kill a former partner who accused him of rape.

He absconded, a bench warrant was issued, and he disappeared to Scotland.

In the months before the fire, Allen was in contact with a woman in the United States whom he met through the online game World of Warcraft.

Suicide pact

In December 2017, he told her that his relationship with Denise Gossett had broken down and he talked about moving to America.

His barrister raised the question if this was the motivation for the killings.

The truth is we do not know and more than likely we never will.

It was "an impossible exercise to establish evidentially what happened" the lawyer said, and the only person who could offer an explanation was "utterly unreliable".

Allen's claims of a suicide pact with Denise were accepted by the prosecution, although they described his version of events as "false" and "implausible".

He said Sabrina had killed her own brother and daughter, and that he had strangled Sabrina.

He gave an inconsistent account of why Denise and Sabrina's blood was on his clothing as well as the handcuffs attached to Denise's body.

The judge shared doubts about Allen's story.

He said it was a "strange suicide pact where one person dies and one escapes uninjured".

During his court appearances, Allen showed no emotion.

He admitted murdering the three youngest victims and to the manslaughter of Denise by reason of a suicide pact.

His guilty plea avoided a trial and reduced the minimum term of his life sentence.

The bungalow where the family died has been demolished but the memories of what happened will be hard to forget.