FIRE KIDS 'CARRIED OUT LIKE RAG DOLLS'

A SCOTS mother, her four-year-old daughter and 21-month-old baby son died in a ferocious house fire which left another of her children fighting for life.

Mum-of-five Kate Duff, 37, Cate-Leigh, four, and baby Felix, are all dead. Jodi, eight, was last night clinging to life in Edinburgh's Royal Hospital for Sick Children.

Last night Kate's devastated fiance Tom Kennedy spoke of his heartbreak at losing the childhood sweetheart he was due to marry in just two months.

Stunned neighbours in Blackburn, West Lothian, told of firefighters' dramatic efforts to save the children whom they carried out in their arms "like rag dolls".

Both Kate and little Cate-Leigh were asthma sufferers who quickly succumbed to the choking black smoke. The baby died later.

Kate's other two daughters Sammy-Jo, 14, and Jo-Ann, 11, were out when the fire started.

Shocked Sammy-Jo raised the alarm after returning home to find the house ablaze. The hysterical youngster told firefighters the children were inside and watched helplessly as her sisters were brought out one by one.

Fiance Tom Kennedy, who was staying with a friend nearby when the tragedy happened, said: "Kate was a modern day saint who absolutely lived for her kids.

"We were due to get married in May at the register office then we were all going to move to Ireland and have a proper church wedding.

"I was so looking forward to being with her and the kids because they are the best thing I have ever had in my life.

"Now I will take Kate's ashes over to Ireland and scatter them there because that is what she would have wanted."

Tom, a council worker from Kilkenny in the Republic of Ireland, was last night being comforted by Kate's brother Michael, 38, and wife Elizabeth, 35.

Neighbour Donald Stone, 62, told of the fire crews' heroic efforts to free the children from the inferno.

He said: "The firemen were absolutely brilliant. They went in there and got the kids, and they came running out with them in their arms, but they were just like rag dolls.

"She was a really lovely lady, really friendly and always thinking about her kids."

Police were last night trying to contact the fathers of the three children involved in the blaze.

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