Two men ac­cused of set­ting fire to a house with a cou­ple and their eight chil­dren in­side ap­peared in the Cou­va Mag­is­trates Court on Tues­day.

Sha­keel Braith­waite, 28, a con­struc­tion work­er, was de­nied bail while Shaun Braith­wait­he, 32, a con­trac­tor, both of Cal­cut­ta #3, Mc Bean, Cou­va, was grant­ed $150,000 bail on two charges of ar­son, with a cash al­ter­na­tive of $8,500.

The charges stemmed from an in­ci­dent on March 2.

Jackim Radix and his wife In­di­ra Gar­cia and their eight chil­dren man­aged to es­cape be­fore the house was com­plete­ly gut­ted.

The two men who are not re­lat­ed ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Cheron Raphael charged with two of­fences of ma­li­cious­ly set­ting fire to the house at Cal­cut­ta #3.

Sha­keel Braith­waite was al­so charged with shoot­ing at Radix, pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion and pos­ses­sion of a firearm.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he was charged with an armed rob­bery which oc­curred on Au­gust 21, 2018, at Rash Rok Bar in Cou­va where sev­er­al bot­tles of al­co­hol, $6,300 and a $100,000 ve­hi­cle were stolen.

Sha­keel Braith­waite’s at­tor­ney Natasha Mon­groo said her client was en­gaged and was ex­pect­ing his first child. She said the ar­son charges arose out of an on­go­ing dis­pute. Mon­groo said her client had one pend­ing mat­ter in the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates Court for pos­ses­sion of a firearm and had been in cus­tody for 11 days.

Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Lin­coln Bon­nett ob­ject­ed to bail for Sha­keel Braith­waite be­cause he al­leged­ly com­mit­ted these of­fences while on bail for a sim­i­lar of­fence. The mag­is­trate up­held the ob­jec­tion and re­mand­ed him in­to cus­tody. Bon­nett did not ob­ject to bail be­ing grant­ed to Shaun Braith­wait­he since he had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions or pend­ing mat­ters. The mat­ter was ad­journed to April 9.