Body of 17-year-old who died in St Patrick’s Day disco stampede returns to family home 

The body of one of the teenagers tragically killed in a crush of youngsters at the gates of a St Patrick’s Day disco has been returned home.

Football fan Morgan Barnard, 17, was taken home today for the last time after he, Lauren Bullock, 17, and Connor Currie, 16, died in the horrifying press outside the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, NI, at around 9.30pm on Sunday.

It comes as police continue a manslaughter probe into Greenvale Hotel owner Michael McElhatton, 52, and another man, said to be his doorman.

McElhatton was further arrested today on suspicion of Class A drugs but fast-track forensic analysis ruled out the possibility and they announced he had been ‘de-arrested.’   

Morgan’s grieving family and friends brought him back into the house for the last time today

Today Morgan Barnard’s heartbroken family brought him back to the family home in Springdale, Dungannon, for the final time. 

Police said yesterday more people could easily have been killed in the crush.

McElhatton said today: ‘I am shocked and horrified that the powdery substance taken by police from the laundry in my house could be drugs.

‘Despite there being no basis to these suspicions, they have blackened my name and caused so much upset for so many people especially those who are grieving and distressed over the events at the Greenvale Hotel.’ 

Around 100 young people were pushed off their feet by pressure from the outside of a huge crowd of around 400 youngsters waiting for the venue’s doors to open at 10pm. 

Multiple eyewitness accounts have described the horror of teens fighting to breathe and screaming hysterically for space to move as dozens were knocked off their feet and crushed down at the event.

Yesterday tearful well-wishers embraced tightly after laying flowers at a shrine to the dead beside a police cordon. 

Hundreds of mourners have left written and floral tributes to the three teenagers who died.

Morgan’s friend Eimear Tallon posted a harrowing account of the tragedy, saying: ‘I was standing up and I couldn’t breathe so I couldn’t imagine how they [those who had been knocked to the ground] felt. 

Morgan Barnard, 17, pictured in his St Patrick’s Academy school uniform

Lauren Bullock, 17, and Connor Currie, 16, were alsop killed in the tragedy on Sunday

Students from Holy Trinity College leave floral tributes outside The Greenvale Hotel yesterday

Michael McElhattaon (left), owner of The Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, is believed to be one of the two men who were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter yesterday

‘I was hysterically screaming for people to move but it was only the people around me who knew the seriousness.

‘With more and more pushing, I also fell. But the thing about me was that I wasn’t on the ground, I was on top of someone, and this person was on top of someone else.

‘As I looked down I could see multiple bodies underneath me and as I looked up I could see multiple bodies on top of me.

‘It was the most traumatic, frightening and stressful moment of my life.’

She added: ‘Unfortunately, a friend of mine who I had seen in the line and chatted to minutes beforehand has died.

‘Morgan and the two other angels, just like the rest of us, left their families last night for an enjoyable night out but unlike the rest of us, they didn’t make it home.

‘My heart breaks for their poor families.’