{"id":30875,"date":"2026-05-07T14:36:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/30875\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:36:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:36:31","slug":"mum-says-neighbours-screams-saved-her-and-son-as-cars-torched-in-arson-attack-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/30875\/","title":{"rendered":"Mum says neighbour\u2019s screams saved her and son as cars torched in arson attack \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mother of two says she could have been killed after both of her cars were torched in an arson attack<\/a> in Co Down.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The vehicles were set alight in the early hours of Wednesday (6 May) in the Killynure Green area of Carryduff.<\/a> <\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood the fire began in a Mercedes before spreading to a BMW parked beside it. <\/p>\n

The incident was reported to police at around 4:45am. PSNI<\/a> officers are treating the blaze as arson.<\/p>\n

\"Housing<\/a>\"Mum<\/a>\"PolicePolice are investigating an incident of arson after two cars were damaged in a fire outside a house in County Down in the early hours of Wednesday.
\nThe incident happened in Killynure Green in Carryduff.
\nPICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN <\/p>\n

Stephanie Walker (29), who was asleep in bed with her four\u2011year\u2011old son, Marcus Boyle at the time, said the attack has left her shaken and fearing what could have happened.<\/p>\n

She told The Irish News<\/a> it is Marcus\u2019s birthday tomorrow. She added: \u201cI am still in shock. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. Me and my wee boy, who turns five tomorrow, were sleeping. I could see an orange tinge; I didn\u2019t have a inkling what was going on. It was whenever heard my neighbour screaming to get out of the house now. I thought my downstairs was on fire, or my living room on fire, I didn\u2019t know how I was getting downstairs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI lifted the child and ran down the stairs. I got to the bottom and opened the front door and the smoke\u2026 the whole street was orange. I ran down into my neighbour\u2019s garden, and by that time the BM then caught on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephanie added that the pair of them could have died.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI\u2019ve lived there for five years and have had no issues, then this. It\u2019s scary when you\u2019re woke at half four in the morning to your car being on fire. There were other cars on the street, I was targeted. To me that\u2019s attempted murder, if I hadn\u2019t have heard my neighbours, me and my son would not be here. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy son is still so scared. He told me, \u2018Mummy, if I had seen the fire first, I would have woken you up.\u2019 God love him, he\u2019s innocent. That should never come out of a child\u2019s mouth, never mind him actually going through something like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what will happen now. I\u2019ve lost my home I\u2019ve lost my cars. Ill not be back to that house again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The neighbour who initially saw the fire told The Irish News<\/a> things could have ended very differently. <\/p>\n

She said: \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t of woke up when I did and raised the alarm, and told the fire brigade, it would have been a different story. That girl and her child would have been dead this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor for Castlereagh South Brian Higginson has condemned the attack which happened at a social housing property. <\/p>\n

The DUP <\/a>representative told The Irish News<\/a> a \u2018quick thinking neighbour\u2019 saved Stephanie and Marcus\u2019s: \u201cI was talking to the resident, she is traumatised. She never heard the two pops of the explosions. It was the shouts and screams of her neighbours that woke her. She then grabbed her child and ran outside past the burning cars. So, a quick-thinking neighbour saved their life. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe (Stephanie) is having to go and stay with her family, before being emergency housed. This kind of behaviour has no place in our community, and I strongly condemn those responsible for this attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

A PSNI<\/a> spokesperson said: \u201cOfficers attended the scene alongside colleagues from the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service who extinguished the blaze.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are treating this report as arson \u2013 with a line of enquiry that one vehicle was initially set on fire which then spread to another parked in the same driveway. Thankfully, no injuries were reported.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother of two says she could have been killed after both of her cars were torched in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13406,2947,61,308,2864,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-30875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-carryduff","9":"tag-co-down","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-fire","12":"tag-psni","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116533800741992007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}