Estranged husband and four sons are found gassed in car

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As KeithYoung looked out over the peaceful beauty spot yesterday he cuddled his four young sons while they began to succumb to the exhaust.

A few miles away officers from two police forces were continuing a desperate hunt for the car after the boys' frantic mother reported a series of anguished telephone calls from her estranged husband.

Officers scrambled a search helicopter and traced the mobile telephone calls, which led them to north Wales. The car was found at the Horseshoe Pass, near Llangollen, at 1.30am, about an hour after the first telephone call to police was made.

The police dog handler who first reached the Mitsubishi Shogun saw a petrol lawnmower in the back of the locked car still spewing out exhaust. He smashed the windows, dragged the children out of the car and gave them first aid before they were taken to Maelor Hospital in Wrexham, where they were pronounced dead. Post-mortem examinations revealed that all five died of carbon-monoxide poisoning.

Last night, relatives were comforting the boys' mother, Samantha, as they tried to comprehend the depression which had led to a loving father killing himself and his sons.

Mr Young, 38, who had legal access to the children, had collected Joshua, 7, Thomas, 6, Calum, 5, and Daniel, 3, from their home in Winsford, Cheshire, where they lived with their mother.

He had arranged to take the boys and was due to keep them overnight. But just after midnight, officers were alerted by the children's frantic mother, who had received a mobile phone call from her husband threatening to harm himself and the boys.

Last night, a police officer stood guard outside Mrs Young's neat semi-detached home. She was due to travel to north Wales today to identify the bodies.

The family used to live together in Winsford but Mrs Young, 27, separated from her husband in January and took the boys to nearby Weaverham. Police said that divorce papers had been served on Mr Young but the boys remained close to their father and he was seeing them on a legitimate-access visit when he took them to Llangollen.

They were also regular visitors to his neat, red-brick semi-detached home on Littler Lane, a quiet cul-de-sac in a well-to-do area of Winsford.

One of Mr Young's neighbour, Tom Challoner, said: "He idolised those children. They were smashing little lads and you would hear them and see them playing out with each other and with the other children around here.

"The dad used to drive a tractor around the fields behind his house and give all the kids a ride."

Another neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: "Keith was a smashing bloke. He thought the world of his children and they thought the world of him.

"He put me to shame with the amount of time he spent with his kids. They wanted for nothing and he was always playing with them."

The boys used to attend Handley Hill Primary School in Winsford but had moved to Wallerscote Primary School in Weaverham when their parents split. They had returned to be schooled at Handley Hill a short time before the tragedy. Grief counsellors were today sent to both schools to help staff and teachers cope.

The headteachers of both schools paid moving tributes to the boys. Steve Roberts, the head of Wallerscote, said: "They were lovely lads, popular and all like little peas from the same pod, with the eldest looking out for his brothers."

Gill King, the head of Handley Hill, added: "They were lively, chatty, lovely little boys ­ never any trouble at all."

Bill Brereton, Deputy Chief Constable of North Wales, said nobody else was being sought in connection with the inquiry.

"In 29 years of police service I have come to realise that dealing with dead bodies is part of the job," he said. "But with the death of a child, and here we have four babies really, it is horrendous beyond my imagination."

Yesterday, in the spring sunshine, the boys' climbing frame, tree house, go-karts and toys littered the garden of their mother's home. Inside, she clutched the treasured picture of her sons.