Two guilty of murder in botched revenge attack

Two men have been found guilty of murdering a mother and her three children in a botched revenge attack.

Shehnila Taufiq, aged 47, her 19-year-old daughter, Zainab, and sons Bilal, 17, and Jamal, 15, all died when a fire engulfed their house in Wood Hill, Leicester, in the early hours of September 13 last year.

Kemo Porter, aged 19, and Tristan Richards, aged 22, were yesterday found guilty of their murders at Nottingham Crown Court.

Five other defendants — Shaun Carter, aged 24; Nathaniel Mullings, aged 19; Jackson Powell, aged 20; Aaron Webb, aged 20; Aaron Jeffers, aged 21; and 17-year-old Cairo Parker — were cleared of four counts of murder, but found guilty of manslaughter.

Prosecutors said the fire was “retribution” for the fatal stabbing of Antoin Akpom, 20, but the killers attacked the wrong house.

During the two-month trial, the jury heard that football coach Mr Akpom had been stabbed in the back in a confrontation involving two 19-year-olds on September 12.

Richard Latham QC, prosecuting, said the defendants were friends of Mr Akpom and that hours later they mistakenly targeted the Taufiqs’ house, believing it to be the home of one of the 19-year-olds.

The prosecutor said: “They simply got the wrong house — a tragedy.”

As the manslaughter verdict on Parker was read out, there were tears in the public gallery and cries of “he’s only a baby!”

Mr Justice John Griffith Williams lifted restrictions on naming Parker and said he would hear mitigation tomorrow afternoon before sentencing the defendants on Wednesday morning.

Mrs Taufiq’s husband, Muhammad Taufiq al-Sattar, was in Dublin, where he worked as a neurosurgeon at Beaumont Hospital.

He normally spent three weekends out of four with his family in Leicester.

His wife had helped him set up the Dawah community centre in Castleknock, where he had a home.