A NEWPORT taxi driver told a murder trial jury she heard a passenger “making a noise” in the back of her cab after picking up a fare from a city street where a man was allegedly lured and tortured.

Nasib Dhatt was the first prosecution witness in the case of a father who, it is claimed, was savagely attacked by a gang at a flat in Munnings Drive in the St Julians area over a £500 unpaid drug debt before being stabbed to death in Cardiff.

Newport man John Junior Phillips, aged 28, of Baird Close, a 17-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl, who cannot be named, both from Cardiff, are on trial for the murder of Anthony Winter.

Cardiff Crown Court was told how 19-year-old James Jones of Bedwas Close, St Mellons, Cardiff, has admitted murder while Lauren Hutchinson, also aged 19, of Munnings Drive, has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.

The jury has heard how the 32-year-old was allegedly punched, stamped on and kicked in Hutchinson’s Munnings Drive flat which was left covered in "pools of blood".

The prosecution says the father-of-one was then taken, moaning and severely injured, to a woodland in the St Mellons area of Cardiff where he was knifed through an artery.

ABC Taxis driver Ms Dhatt, who gave evidence behind a screen, told the jury how she picked up a fare in Munnings Drive when passengers got into her Vauxhall Astra and they headed for St Mellons.

She said the first male who got into the cab was on his phone and when she was asked about the man in the middle of the back seat, she answered: “He could not sit properly.

“He was making a noise all the way. He tried to speak but I did not understand.”

Ms Dhatt told the court how the male sitting behind her said the man in the middle had learning difficulties.

She added: “He was leaning to one side.”

Mr Winter was found covered in blood near Brookfield Drive in St Mellons just before 7.15am on Thursday, November 22, last year by a passing shopper.

Hutchinson and the 17-year-old girl, who also admits perverting the course of justice, cleaned up the flat to "hide the evidence" of the "ferocious beating" Mr Winter took there, claimed prosecutor Christopher Clee QC.

In a statement issued after his death, the alleged victim’s family described him as a dad who “adored his little girl”.

The trial before Mrs Justice Jefford is due to last four weeks.

Proceeding.