A SCHOOLGIRL relived the evening she saw a taxi driver being savagely kicked as he lay on the ground near his cab.

The 14-year-old girl told a jury at Manchester Crown Court, she was with three friends when she saw the brutal attack on the defenceless father of four who died from his injuries.

The girl was giving evidence at the trial in which two men, Mark Baker, aged 21, and Jason Power, aged 30, deny murdering the taxi driver, Tariq Javed in Bury one evening last November.

Baker and Power and a third man, 17 year old David Hawkins, also deny robbing Mr Javed of his cab and coat.

The girl told the court: "I saw a man with a bald head hitting an Asian man... he had hold of his hair and was kicking him on the chest," the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reason told a jury.

"He kicked him hard about five times. The Asian man was sitting down and the other man was booting him."

The girl, who wept during parts of her evidence, said she noticed another man who she knew standing watching the kicking, before both men got into the taxi and sped off.

She looked away because she believed the car was going to go over the injured man's head, but she managed to get the registration number which was later handed to police.

The Crown allege Mr Javed had picked up all three defendants in Bury after they had been celebrating Baker's 21st birthday, but a row started when they refused to pay the £2 fare.

Mr Javed was allegedly dragged from his cab and punched, kicked, and stamped on, in what prosecutor Anthony Gee QC has described as "a vicious, cowardly, and disgraceful attack."

As Mr Javed lay dying in the road, the man allegedly sped off in his car which was driven over his body, but there was no evidence the wheels had hit his head or body.

In evidence, the schoolgirl said she and her friends saw the incident, and said she recognised Baker as the man standing by the cab watching the victim being kicked by a second man.

"After the kicking the victim fell backwards and his head hit the roadway. He had blood all over his face and there was blood coming out of his mouth," said the girl.

She said one of her friends shouted at Baker to warn him the injured man was lying behind the wheels of the car, and when she heard the tyres screeching she turned away "thinking it was going to go over the man's head."

The car reversed a short distance and then "shot off", but she wrote down the registration and then ran to a nearby house to get a blanket for the injured driver.

The trial continues on Thursday