A YOUTH worker told a court how she was roused from her bed by the sound of racist taunts on the night Sean Whyte died in a Colne street.

Ann McGladdery told Preston Crown Court she had gone through the back of a house in North Street where Wasim Mumtaz was staying and out into North Street to see what was happening on the night of September 29 last year.

She described for the jury how she had arrived in the street to see Sean lying on the ground and heard racist jibes from a crowd assembled nearby.

Miss McGladdery said she had known one of the defendants, Wasim Mumtaz, for between eight and nine years.

Wasim Mumtaz, 21, of North Street, denies violent disorder. HIs brother Hasan, 18, also of North Street, denies murder, wounding and violent disorder.

Miss McGladdery said: "It was all more or less over when I got there. There was lots of shouting and screaming, racist taunts and threats.

"There was Wasim and two young men either side of him. I saw the young man who had been stabbed out in the street. I went to see if I could assist but a man who was a paramedic was assisting him.

"I asked if he needed any help and he said no so I went back to Wasim. I asked him to tell me that he's not had anything to do with that and I said I thought he was dead at that point.

"There was still a lot of barracking going on between the white young men and Asian young men and Wasim was saying something to him. I pushed him back in and said: 'Please don't rise to it, because that's what they want'. Wasim came to the house and was really shaken up and upset. I tried to calm him down.

"I asked him what happened and he said they arrested Hasan. Wasim went on to say: 'Balal did it'. I asked him where the knife had come from and he said it wasn't his."

Questioned by Wasim's defence barrister Ken Hind, Miss McGladdery said the area around North Street was predominantly white. She confirmed that when she had arrived in the street, the group had been mainly white and very hostile describing the situation as "quite scary". When she had spoken to Wasim, he was almost incoherent.

Questioned by Anthony Gee QC, prosecuting, she said she had never even seen Hasan. Earlier, chef Terry Philips told the court he had watched the evening's events unfold from the doorstep of a friend's house in North Street. He described seeing a white youth and an Asian youth fighting and a woman intervening. He then said he saw another Asian youth run past him carrying either one or two knives.

The trial continues.