A WITNESS who helped trap a killer today revealed he had been living in torment since chancing upon the blood-stained murder scene.

Kenneth Jackson, 43, has been on anti-depressants since finding his next door neighbour Samsuddin Farhan Hamad cradling Mokhler Mostafa near his home on January 19.

Today, he told how that gruesome scene was dominating his dreams and spoke of the stress at being cross examined for almost an hour in court.

Mr Jackson's evidence helped a jury at Preston Crown Court find Hamad, 20, guilty of murder. Mr Jackson was the only person to see the two together in Infirmary Street, Blackburn.

Hamad, an Iraqi Kurd asylum seeker like Mr Mostafa, was sentenced to life imprisonment and told to expect deportation once he has served the jail term.

Mr Jackson said he knew Hamad, who claimed two white men had carried out the attack on his friend, was guilty from that January night.

He was walking back from his niece's house in Mosley Street when he saw Hamad in the road cradling Mr Mostafa.

Mr Jackson said: "Hamad looked right into my eyes and never asked for any help. If your mate had just been stabbed you would ask for help.

"He was wasting valuable time. I could have called an ambulance straight away."

Mr Jackson, thinking the two men were drunk, went into his house, to get some things for his niece and then headed back to her house.

He said: "I walked up the road and saw the knife. I asked him if the knife was his and he said 'the knife is mine.' I kicked it towards him and he picked it up. He said four white guys had stabbed his friend.

"Then I called the ambulance. Once he realised I was helping, he started getting panicky.

"I saw the dark fluid on his friend's chest and watched them put him in the ambulance. It was a horrific sight to see someone who had been brutally stabbed."

Since, Mr Jackson has been prescribed anti-depressants and been given what he describes as "tremendous" support from specially-trained police family liaison officers.

He said: "I wake up sweating in the night and sometimes crying. I see the two men in the road and it is like a scene from a film.

"It has been an ordeal and caused me a great deal of stress. It was an ordeal enough finding the man.

"Then on top of that I gave evidence for 55 minutes, which was absolutely right, but still stressful.

"The police have been so professional under difficult circumstances, trying to speak to people who did not want to speak to them.

"People have said I shouldn't have talked but what sort of a world would that be if we didn't?

"I knew the police couldn't have done it without me and you have to carry out your duty."