BRINGING the Birkby killers to justice was a mammoth task.
It prompted one of the biggest-ever murder hunts in the history of West Yorkshire Police.
And it also led to a huge - and costly - trial which ran for six weeks at Leeds Crown Court.
The investigation took police officers not only the length and breadth of Britain but also to Pakistan, where they tried to track down Shahid Mohammed - one of the murder suspects who is still on the run after failing to answer bail.
The detectives' work began in earnest shortly after 2am on May 12 last year, when fire officers responding to a call to a house fire in Osborne Road realised they were not dealing with an accidental blaze.
The smell of petrol hung in the air as the flames were extinguished - it was an arson attack.
A team of forensic experts joined detectives in the grim task of picking through the smouldering ruins of a family home, firstly to locate the victims who lay inside and secondly to secure the vital evdience that would later trap their killers.
A large white tent was erected outside the house within an hour of the first call and a team of detectives swung into action.
The survivors of the blaze were questioned as soon as they were fit, scores of houses in Osborne Road and the surrounding streets were visited and senior officers sought the help of community leaders.
They needed to establish what motive could drive anyone to target a perfectly ordinary, law-abiding family.
A breakthrough came early on the first day. Two of the men who would later go on trial walked into Huddersfield Police headquarters and admitted that they had information about the shocking crime.
Within hours of an incident room being set up inside the Castlegate building, calls were pouring in - many from people anxious to pass on vital information.
Some of those calls came from friends and acquaintances of the gang involved, giving detectives names, addresses and, more importantly, a motive.
Arrest teams swooped on houses across Huddersfield within days of the fire and by the end of the first week, more than a dozen people had been brought in for questioning.
Some were allowed to leave with police thanks; others were released on bail and told to return.
A motive was soon confirmed, with police in Newcastle helping their West Yorkshire colleagues.
They were dealing with a frightening case of kidnap and assault involving a gang of Asian men from Huddersfield, who had targeted a young couple to uphold strong Muslim traditions.
Firebomb victim Ateeq-ur-Rehman, 18, was a friend of the young couple at the centre of the kidnap and his involvment again pointed police in the direction of two of the gang ringleaders, Shaied Iqbal and Shahid Mohammed.
Then came another breakthrough. Some of the men suspected of involvment in the fire-bombing admitted their part and offered to become key prosecution witnesses.
Detailed interviews with them recounted how Iqbal and Mohammed had vowed to "get" Ateeq for allegedly interfering in a family matter.
Other painstaking inteviews unravelled a plot with petrol bombs put together in Sam's Autos, a Huddersfuield garage, and recounted how the plan to frighten Ateeq by firebombing cars outside his house suddenly turned to a murderous attack on his home as he slept.
The police files grew thicker by the day. So much paperwork meant that more than 10,000 documents were assembled for the Crown Prosecution Service.
And for the past few weeks, they have filled much of a storeroom at Leeds Crown Court as the trial unravelled day by day in Courtoom Number 4.
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