A judge intervened when a man accused of murdering his wife, son
and father-in-law yelled at a lawyer: "Are you stupid?"

Danai Muhammadi's outbursts came on his fourth day in the
witness box at an arson murder trial.

The 24-year-old denies spraying petrol through the letterbox of
his in-laws' Chatham home last September 10 after his marriage
broke down.

A blaze killed his wife Melissa Crook, 20, son Noah, 15 months,
and father-in-law Mark, 49.

When barrister Alan Kent QC pushed him on his alibi today he
lost his temper.

The Iranian-born car salesman ignored his Kurdish interpreter
and shouted in English: "Are you stupid?"

Mr Kent said: "You did know there was a fire."

He shouted: "No I did not!"

Mr Kent, defending Muhammadi's former girlfriend Emma Smith who
is co-accused of murder, pressed him - suggesting he knew his wife
and child had died all along.

He shouted: "How do I know? You stupid! I didn't understand what
they (police) said to me."

"in this court we conduct ourselves politely…” – judge mr justice sweeney

Judge Mr Justice Sweeney said: "Mr Muhammadi, in this court we
conduct ourselves politely.

"Counsel is being scrupulously courteous to you. You will please
be courteous to him."

Muhammadi, through his interpreter, replied: "I'm very sorry,
but he keeps repeating the same question."

The judge said: "He keeps repeating the question because he
takes the view he's not getting a straight answer."

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

Last week, Muhammadi told the court a man threatened to torch his in-laws' home if he

was not paid £5,000.

He met the man and a friend in Milton Road, Gillingham, just
before 2.30am on the night of the fire, he said - but did not bring
the money.

Muhammadi said the "blackmailers" must have torched the terraced
home.

He added he saw one of them outside Melissa's home, in Chatham
Hill, but did not stop because the man had a pistol.

But Mr Kent said the story was not true.

He claimed Muhammadi "panicked" and called his girlfriend after
starting the fire, threatening her if she did not call
999.

Emma Smith, defendant in
Chatham Hill triple murder trial

Mr Kent said Smith was waiting in a Maidstone flat belonging to
Muhammadi's friend, Farhad Mahmud, while the two men were in
Chatham.

Muhammadi said he just asked her to call police.

He kept interrupting Mr Kent, asking him questions and switching
between Kurdish and English.

The judge eventually said: "Would you please just answer the
questions?"

During three hours of cross-examination this morning the car
salesman said his wife was a "good mother".

He felt bad for punching her, he said, in a late-night assault
which ended the relationship last March.

"When you are overloaded at work you get stressed," he said.
"It's not a permanent sickness. I am a human being. Like many other
human beings life is not always full of happiness. You get pain,
you get stresses."

His girlfriend - accused of "goading" him into murder - was
"immature and silly", he told Maidstone Crown Court.

He said in English: "She's evil, she made everything worse, she
tried to give me many reasons to not see Noah and Melissa."

Muhammadi, of Britannia Street, Coventry, denies three murders
and the attempted murders of Melissa's mother Amanda and brother
Bohdan.

Smith, 21, of Barley Lea, Coventry, and Mahmud, 35, of Fernhill
Road, Maidstone, deny the same charges.

The trial continues.

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Muhammadi denied signing divorce papers with his wife, who had left his Coventry home to be with her family in Chatham, three days before she died.

He said the former pupil at Gillingham’s Upbury Manor School slept with him and agreed to see him every two weeks.

But he said: "She said, 'look you have slept with other few girls and it's morally not right for me to come back to Coventry."

He told the court: "It's none of Mel's concern whether I have 10 girlfriends because I'm not prepared for a second to leave Noah for any woman."