A GROUP of young men kicked and punched two people as they lay on the ground in an East Oxford street, a jury heard yesterday.

Margaret Leach told a jury at Oxford Crown Court in the trial of seven people that she was working in an office in Cowley Road when she heard a lot of noise coming from the street below.

She said she looked out of the window and saw two people lying on the ground near the junction with James Street on April 7 last year with two other people standing over them.

Ms Leach said: “One of them was hitting male one, who was laying on top of the other. He was hitting him with what looked like a hammer or a heavy stick. There was a second male alongside. He had a hammer as well in his hand, I thought it was a hammer.”

Haroon Mohammed, 20, of Golden Road, East Oxford; Imran Khan, 18, of Shelley Road, East Oxford; Mohammed Umar, 18, of Desborough Avenue, High Wycombe, and a 17-year-old boy who cannot be named, deny violent disorder in Cowley Road, East Oxford, on April 7 last year. Ameen Mohammed, 19, of Tawney Street, East Oxford; Saqab Dogar, 19, of Tawney Street, East Oxford; and Shah Ahmed, 21, of West Wycombe Road, High Wycombe, also appeared at Oxford Crown Court.

All deny kidnapping and causing actual bodily harm. The trial continues.