Farhad Mahmud, Danai Muhammadi and Emma Smith

by Dan Bloom

A jury will continue considering its verdicts tomorrow on a car salesman accused of murdering three generations of his wife’s family in an arson attack.

The five men and seven women were instructed today to “concentrate” on Danai Muhammadi first and foremost in the Chatham Hill murder trial.

Jurors were sent out to deliberate at 2.45pm, but were sent home for the day around two hours later.

Muhammadi, 24, is accused of spraying petrol through the letterbox of his in-laws’ Chatham home at 2.30am last September 10.

A fierce blaze killed his wife Melissa Crook, 20, father-in-law Mark, 49, and 15-month-old son Noah. Her brother Bohdan, 22, and mother Amanda, 50, escaped.

High Court judge Mr Justice Sweeney said: “There is no dispute that some person or persons deliberately set fire to 210 Chatham Hill, nor that Melissa, Noah and Mr Crook all died as a result of that fire.

“There’s no denying that the intention was to kill or cause really serious harm.”

It is alleged Muhammadi paid his friend, 35-year-old nightclub bouncer Farhad Mahmud of Fernhill Road, Maidstone, to help carry out the “dreadful act” after his wife left him.

His new girlfriend, Emma Smith, 21, of The Barley Lea, Coventry, is said to have “goaded” him into action.

All three deny three charges of murder and two of attempted murder.

Jurors are now sifting through six weeks of evidence.

Mr Justice Sweeney asked the jury to note “inconsistencies” in Mahmud’s account and said Smith “accepted that what she had actually been doing was lying.”

All three told conflicting accounts to police and the court, including Muhammadi claiming his wife was the victim of a blackmail plot.

Mark Crook (left), his daughter Melissa and her toddler son Noah were killed

Mr Justice Sweeney reminded the jury that while Muhammadi, of Britannia Street, Coventry, claimed he had received four blackmail calls: “You know what the answer is – there is no such phone that rang his phone in the pattern that he suggests.”

He finished by saying “thank you for your close attention” and sent the jury to deliberate.

The trial continues.