A teenager told a court how he torched an Oxford family's home and was shocked to hear a scream from the burning house.

Anum Khan, nine, died in the fire at the house in Magdalen Road on August 26 last year. Her brother Majid, 15, died two days later.

Alan Swanton, 18, told a Birmingham Crown Court jury that he and Thomas Liedl, also 18, were asked to set fire to the Khans' terraced home as "a favour" to Haroon Sharif, one of six people accused of two murders.

Speaking from the witness box, dressed casually in a denim shirt, Swanton told the court that when he was first asked to start the fire by Sharif he told him "no way" but when he and Liedl arrived at the Khans' house they decided on the spot to torch the home instead of a wheelie bin. Michael Austin-Smith, defending, asked Swanton why he torched the house by squirting petrol through the letterbox.

The teenager replied: "In a way I thought it was to prove to Haroon that I could do it."

Swanton told the jury that Sharif encouraged him and Liedl to set fire to the house instead of a wheelie bin by telling them there was no-one in at the Khans' home.

Mr Austin-Smith asked him: "Is it correct that you and Thomas Liedl set fire to 156 Magdalen Road?"

"Yes," Swanton replied. Mr Austin-Smith then asked him: "What thought did you give to people being in that house?"

Swanton said: "I did not give it any thought because I was told there was nobody in."

Mr Austin-Smith asked: "When did you first realise there were people in the house?"

Swanton replied: "Just after I set light to it. Then I heard a scream." Swanton said he felt "sick" when he later found out two people had died in the blaze, and said he didn't realise the fire would be so devastating.

MAS: "You now know two people died in the fire that you set. How do you feel about it?"

AS: "I feel sick with myself for what I have done because I did not go there to hurt anybody but I have done."

Swanton also told the court that he was not aware that the petrol he poured through the letterbox would cause such a devastating blaze when it was lit.

Earlier, the jury witnessed the Khan family home bursting into flames on a security video taken from the Philosopher and Firkin pub on the Cowley Road.

The black and white film showed a shadowy figure running away from the Khans' house at the time the fire was set.

Swanton admitted that it may have been him captured on the security video. The six on trial are Alan Swanton, of Southern Way, Letchworth, Hertfordshire; brothers Mohammed Nawaz, 21, and Haq Nawaz, 31, both of Ridge Road, Letchworth; Thomas Liedl, of Birdshill, Letchworth; Haroon Sharif, 20, of Morrell Avenue, Oxford; and Riaz Munshi, 26, of Fulwell Road, Sheffield.

They all deny the charges.

The trial continues.

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