TRIAL OF MUSLIM GANG THAT WANTED TO AVENGE FRIEND'S DEATH AND SET WRONG HOUSE ON FIRE KILLING MOTHER AND THREE OF HER CHILDREN OPENS IN UK

An innocent family died when their home was set on fire in a bungled revenge attack that targeted the wrong address, a court heard.



Shehnila Taufiq, 47, her daughter, Zainab, 19, and sons Bilal, 17, and Jamil, 15, perished after a ‘ferocious’ blaze engulfed their Leicester home in the early hours of the morning, a jury was told.



Mrs Taufiq’s husband, consultant neurosurgeon Dr Muhammed Taufiq Sattar, survived because he was working in Dublin at the time of the tragedy.



Jamal Tauriq, left and his brother Bilal both died in the blaze, along with their mother Shehnila and sister Zainab



Seven men and a youth are accused of deliberately starting the inferno in Spinney Hills, Leicester. They all deny four counts of murder.



Nottingham Crown Court was told the intended target of the arson attack was teenager Abdul Hakim, whose mother lived just two doors away from the Taufiq family.



Seven hours earlier Hakim, 19, had been involved in a confrontation with football coach Antoin Akpom, a friend and associate of the accused, in which Mr Akpom was stabbed to death. The incident took place in Sussex Street, Leicester, less than a mile from the scene of the fire.



Richard Latham prosecuting said as the eight defendants stuck, the family was asleep upstairs in their home, pictured



Richard Latham QC, prosecuting, said the eight defendants struck at the mid-terraced home where Mrs Taufiq and her children were sleeping, believing it was linked to Hakim, who was known by his nickname of ‘AP’.



But Mr Latham added: 'They simply got the wrong house. A tragedy.'



The court heard one senior fire officer described the resulting blaze, which was started by petrol being poured through the letterbox then set alight, as the ‘worst he had ever attended’.





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