Killer cab driver had guns returned in spite of health fears

Minicab driver Michael Atherton, 42, successfully applied to have his weapons returned despite his family telling police that he had threatened to shoot himself in 2008.

Late on New Year’s Day police were called to his semi-detached house in Greenside Avenue, Horden, Peterlee, County Durham, and found he had killed his 47-year-old partner, Susan McGoldrick, her sister, Alison Turnbull, 44, and her niece, Tanya Turnbull, 24, before taking his own life.

As the shooting began, a teenager, who is understood to be Mrs McGoldrick’s 19-year-old daughter, Laura, fled through an upstairs window and managed to raise the alarm. Durham Police said that Atherton had been out drinking, while the women he killed were out in another group of friends.

A row ensued when they met at home and “in a matter of moments” he blasted the women downstairs.

He then turned his licensed-shotgun on himself between the kitchen and living room. Det Supt Paul Goundry said: “My officers are continuing to work closely with the victims’ families to piece together the series of events that led to this tragic incident and to establish a motive.” Easington Labour MP Grahame Morris said: “The issue is that in 2008 police responded to a call that there was a domestic argument and Atherton had threatened to self-harm – to shoot himself.

“At the time the police took his firearms from him and he applied to have them returned.

“Police made an assessment and they were returned to him.”

Durham Police have confirmed that the weapons were taken from Atherton’s house as a precaution, but as he insisted there had been no threat to harm himself, the weapons were returned.

That decision followed national procedure, a force spokesman confirmed.

“It was one person’s word against another,” he said.

“If there was no grounds for applying for the revocation of a firearms licence the guns would be returned to the firearms licence holder.”

Mr Morris called for a review of firearms legislation in the light of the tragedy which has shocked the former mining village by the North Sea.

However, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) has warned against “any knee-jerk reaction” to the tragedy.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s official spokesman said that the Government had no plans to revisit UK gun laws which were “amongst the toughest in the world”.

“We are trying to balance the need to protect public safety with the need to make sure those controls are practical and work,” Mr Cameron said.