A consultant foot specialist has told how a man accused of an arson attack on a club with people trapped inside during the Bradford riots had an unusual walk which linked him to the crime.

Haydn Kelly, who last year travelled to the soccer World Cup finals with the Republic of Ireland squad, told Bradford Crown Court how he had spent more than nine hours analysing video film of events on the night of the Bradford riots and surveillance footage of suspect Mohammed Ilyas.

Ilyas, a 48-year-old businessman, of Prospect Road, Wapping, Bradford, is alleged to have taken part in the attack on the Manningham Ward Labour club while 23 people were trapped inside.

The prosecution claim that he is the man caught on film wearing a black Afro-style wig trying to set light to curtains in the club.

The man is later seen to put burning material through a broken window at the premises.

Mr Kelly explained how he was asked to compare footage from the night of the riots with surveillance film taken of Ilyas before his arrest in December 2001.

He confirmed that he had carried out so-called gait analysis for thousands of people and his repeated viewing of the video evidence showed both similarities and dissimilarities between the man in the curly wig and Ilyas.

Mr Kelly explained that within the first hour of his analysis he spotted an abnormality in the movement of the right foot of the man in the riot video.

He said the movement, whereby the foot rolls inwards, was only seen in about ten per cent of people visiting his clinic. During his evidence, sometimes seen frame-by-frame, Mr Kelly used a laser pen to highlight a similar abnormal movement of the right foot on the surveillance film of Ilyas.

Ilyas has pleaded not guilty to a charge of arson with intent to endanger the lives of the 23 people trapped in the club and an alternative allegation of arson being reckless as to whether their lives would be endangered. The jury heard earlier yesterday from a retired police sergeant who contacted the unit investigating the riots after Ilyas's arrest featured on the front page of the Telegraph & Argus.

Although his face was partially blocked out David Oldham told the jury he had "an instant reaction'' when he saw the photograph.

He said he rang the Operation Wheel unit the next day and asked if the man worked at the Supa Hand car wash on Otley Road where he regularly took his car.

Mr Oldham was shown the video footage and although at first he said he didn't recognise the man with the wig, he later indicated it was definitely the man from the car wash after seeing further shots of him.

The jury has heard that a curly black wig was found in a locked filing cabinet at the car wash which Ilyas ran. Ilyas's barrister Michael Gledhill QC put it to Mr Oldham that he had been "conditioned'' by the response he got to his call to pick out Ilyas, but Mr Oldham maintained that if he could not recognise him he would have said so.

The trial continues.