We thought we would be burned alive, court told

Last orders had been called at Bradford's Manningham Ward Labour Club when masked rioters started smashing windows and hurling petrol bombs into the premises almost two years ago.

Roy Glister, who had been the steward at the club for seven years, told the jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday how he locked the doors after he saw people shouting and throwing fire-bombs outside.

He said: "Everybody seemed to be coming towards the club, and we thought they were going to attack the club with fire-bombs.

"So we went and got a hosepipe and as we got the hosepipe the windows started coming through.

"I told everybody to get behind the bar. Nobody could get at us.

"We could drop the shutters, lock the bar and get into the main cellar area."

Among the 23 trapped in the club was an elderly woman with her Downs Syndrome son.

Mr Glister described how the terrified members used beer barrels to barricade themselves in. At one stage he heard a loud explosion as his car was set alight close to an exit door and described how people were starting to panic.

He said the elderly woman, Kath Arran, was shaking and crying and others were telephoning the fire service on their mobile phones.

"We thought we were going to die with the club being on fire," he said. "People were just saying 'Get us out! Get us out! We're trapped and we can't get out'."

He said the people seemed to panic more when the fire alarm went off.

"I thought we were all going to be burned alive," he said.

Eventually fire crews reached the club, but they had to put out Mr Glister's burning car before the trapped members could be led to safety.

Businessman Mohammed Ilyas, 48, who runs the Supa Hand car wash and valet premises on Otley Road, Bradford, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of arson with intent to endanger the lives of the 23 people trapped inside the club.

He has also denied an alternative charge of arson being reckless as to whether their lives would be endangered.

In a statement read out to the jury, Mr Glister's wife Jean said she had been devastated by the blaze which caused more than £1 million worth of damage.

She watched helplessly as their flat above the club was destroyed. "Everything I owned in the world was going up in flames and I was crying," she said.

Retired Stephen O'Connor described how he and his wife Maggie took refuge for what seemed like "a lifetime'' in the toilets of the club as it was over-run by rioters.

He said his wife became more distressed about their situation after a brick was hurled through the concert room window.

As he looked through the door of the toilets, he saw three Asian men kicking the shutters protecting the gaming machines.

The couple also heard shouting inside the club, including: "Let's kill the white trash".

Mr O'Connor smashed the lights in the toilet area and braced himself against a door while his wife used her phone to call the emergency services and their family. At one point they received a call from his sister saying that everybody else had been rescued from the club. The couple themselves were eventually led to safety by police. But when Mr O'Connor, who had a heart condition, visited the ruined club a few hours after their ordeal he suffered an angina attack and was taken to hospital.

Prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC outlined the various strands of evidence which the Crown says prove Ilyas was the man in a curly Afro-style wig who was caught on video footage trying to set light to curtains at the club and putting burning material into the premises.

He told the jury that a facial-mapping expert had found similarities between images of the man and Ilyas, two people who knew him had recognised him on the video footage and another expert in human movement had identified a very abnormal walking technique.

Mr MacDonald said that after Ilyas was arrested in December 2001 officers found a curly Afro-style wig in a locked filing cabinet at the Supa Hand premises.

The trial continues.