Labour snatched Great Horton ward from the Tories in last night's by-election to become the largest party on Bradford Council.

Labour candidate Liz Devlin, pictured, took the seat with a majority of 162 votes over the Conservative's Richard Milczanowski in the closely fought contest.

Labour supporters - including leader of the Labour group Councillor Ian Greenwood and Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe - at the count at Great Horton Village Hall cheered as the win was announced.

Her victory means Labour now has 37 seats on Bradford Council, one more than the Tories.

However, the authority will remain in no overall control because of the Liberal Democrat alliance with the Conser-vative group on the Council.

Paul Michell, for the Liberal Democrats, received 692 votes and the Green Party's Derek Curtis 129 votes.

Only 23.4 per cent of the electorate of just over 10,000 people turned out to vote in the by-election caused by the death of Tory councillor Moira Crabtree in August at the age of 77.

Ms Devlin, secretary of the Bradford branch of public-sector trade union Unison, said she was thrilled by her win but urged everyone to remember the previous holder of the seat.

She said: "Whilst I am glad to win, I do appreciate we are here under tragic circumstances and I think we should all remember that."

She said she had enjoyed the "good clean" campaign and paid tribute to the voters of the ward. "I want to say a huge thank you to the people of Great Horton for putting their trust in me," the 41-year-old said.

Mr Milczanowski said it was a close contest.

"As a resident of Great Horton, I will still continue campaigning," he said.

"The circumstances of the election were tragic with my friend, colleague and mentor Moira passing away."

Paul Michell said he was pleased with the result as the Lib Dems increased their vote by about 40 per cent.

"It puts us in a good position for fighting this seat next June," he said.

The extreme far-right British National Party was forced to withdraw its candidate James Breslin after his nomination paper was declared invalid.