Five men have appeared in court charged with murdering a woman and her three children in their Leicester home.
Shaun Carter (24), Jackson Powell (19), Akeem Jeffers (21), Tristan Richards (22) and a 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons appeared at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday in connection with the fire in Wood Hill, Spinney Hills, in the early hours of September 13.
The five defendants are each charged with four counts of murder. They all deny the charges.
The charges relate to the deaths of mother Shehnila Sattar and her three children, Zainab, 19, Bilal, 17, and Jamal Sattar, 15, whose bodies were found in the house.
The five defendants appeared alongside two other men, who are accused of murdering football coach Antoin Akpom the night before the fire.
Hussain Hussain (19), of no fixed abode, and Abdul Hakim (19), of Wood Hill, Spinney Hills, Leicester, pleaded not guilty to murdering 20-year-old Mr Akpom on the night of September 12.
All seven defendants were remanded back into custody.
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The five men charged in the Wood Hill case are due to be tried at Nottingham Crown Court in April.
Hussain and Hakim will be tried at Stafford Crown Crown, also in April.
Three other people who have been charged with murder in relation to the Wood Hill deaths were not in court today. They will appear at a later date. They are: Aaron Webb (19), Nathaniel Mullings (19) and Kemo Porter (18).
