A TWINBROOK man has told how his family are living in fear following a near fatal arson attack at their home in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Gerry Flynn (66) lives in Thornhill Crescent with five other adults and his eight-month-old grandchild. He described how local hoods burned down the back gate of his property, just a few short feet from an oil tank, which emergency services said could have caused fatalities if it had caught fire. 

At around 5.30am, the culprits took the family's wheelie bins from the back alley, pushing them against the gate before setting them ablaze.

"There's an oil tank directly behind the gate, and fire brigade and the police said if the oil tank and the gate had caught on fire they'd have been looking at a murder investigation, because nobody would've got out of the house," Mr Flynn said.

"Our neighbour that lives right behind us had to use the hose over the fence to try to get it out, but he had to phone the fire brigade who had to come put it out. 

The gate is completely gone, the bins are completely obliterated. We're lucky it didn't catch the tank."

Mr Flynn doesn't know the reason for the attack, but said he believes it was a targeted attack.

"I think it was deliberate because there were other bins in the pathway, but they just hit our house," he said.

"Our bins were down the alley a bit so they pushed them right against the gate and then set them on fire."

"Everybody is really frightened. My son and his partner don't want to be there because they feel really unsafe, they have a baby."

A PSNI spokesperson said: "Police in West Belfast received a report that several bins had been set on fire at a walkway to the rear of a house in the Thornhill Crescent area of Dunmurry on Sunday 1st August.

"It was reported that the bins were set alight sometime around 5am on Sunday morning causing damage to the fence of the property. This incident follows reports of anti-social behaviour in the area in recent times and the local Neighbourhood Policing Team have been notified and will take steps to address these issues."