Hidden, her voice faltering, the girl described the moment she saw the murder of Damilola

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Desperate 999 call from men who found Damilola bleeding to death

She has just turned 14 and was the only one, says the Crown, to see the savage killing of Damilola Taylor.

And, late yesterday afternoon, in a packed and tense Old Bailey courtroom, the strain finally told on the young girl. She could not answer any more questions, she whispered, and she wanted to go home.

It was an early end to a crucial day of evidence. The end of the proceedings was bitter. In a series of increasingly angry exchanges, one of the defence counsel repeatedly and forcefully accused the girl of being a liar, of seeking attention, of being coached by the police. Repeatedly, she denied the allegations, insisting she failed to give a full account at the beginning of the inquiry because she was afraid of the consequences.

Because of her age, the girl gave her evidence hidden behind a grey board and a high dark green screen.

Her voice was strong at first and then faltering when she told of the violence she saw. Her face, on a television screen, flanked by a light wood wall, was pale as she anxiously twisted a strand of dark hair in her finger. The four defendants, aged between 14 and 17, again because of their age, sat not in the dock but in the well of the court, next to their parents. They watched the girl intently on the screen.

"I would never be able to forget their faces, all of them", said the teenage girl, describing the alleged lethal attack. She said the youths had surrounded Damilola. "I just thought they were talking and then they started moving their hand over. I thought they were robbing someone, a little boy.

"They were all standing around him in a semi-circle. They passed a bottle around. They were saying something to the boy and they just hit him with the thing."

She had come across the group "running after someone" near Blakes Road, in the North Peckham Estate, south London, as she made her way home from school. She later named three of the youths, including two brothers, to the police and said she knew the fourth one by sight.

She said simply: "It is not unusual for robberies to take place in Peckham and it is not unusual for the brothers to rob people."

One of the group had walked around the corner and picked something up from a dump used by workmen, said the girl.

She hid behind a car, a Fiat Punto, to watch what happened. "When he came back, he had something in his hand.

"He broke something and walked back to the boys and they were passing around this bottle, I heard it smash. The brothers were standing in front of the little boy and the other two were beside him. They just turned away and were looking towards where I was to see if anyone was there.

"They couldn't see me because I was behind this car."

Damilola's parents, Gloria and Richard, sat near the entrance to the court, as far away as one could get from the four accused. The girl told how Damilola, who, unknown to her had been stabbed, lay on the ground. "He was saying 'help'. I thought he had got robbed but I didn't want to go up to him because I might have got into trouble for this."

At that point, Mr Taylor leant forward and squeezed his wife's hand. She dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes.

Mrs Taylor also cried softly as she heard another account of how their son died when the tape of a harrowing 999 call was played to the court.

In the 11-minute exchange, two men who had found Damilola lying in his own blood, Bill Casal and Leslie Tunstall, had desperately sought assistance from an emergency operator.

Two police officers who had arrived tried to resuscitate the boy, frantically trying to find what was blocking the windpipe. A post mortem discovered later that a marble had been forced into Damilola's mouth.

The four youths sat separately from each other. One of the two brothers, both aged 16, scribbled animatedly on a pad and constantly flicked through an album of exhibits in front of him. The other one stared at the television screen and occasionally yawned. Two others at the back gave darting looks around the court.

The girl acknowledged that she had not contacted the police immediately. In a hesistant voice, she said "I thought I could have got into trouble for not helping. I was there and should have done something about it like helping him or phone the police or the ambulance ..." Her voice trailed off.

Taking a deep breath, she continued. "At the end, one of the reasons I called was because if I had a little brother and something like this happened to him I would want someone to come forward.

"The police were arresting lots of people who weren't there and did not do it. I thought it was the wrong thing to do, keeping it all in. It was getting all complicated. I thought about his parents. I wanted to do something about it."

In December last year, a month after Damilola died, the girl telephoned Crimestoppers. She could not get through, and dialled 999. However, she admitted, she had given several different versions to the police. In one story, she said she had heard what had happened from the brothers, and, in another, she said she had heard of the incident from a 14-year-old who is one of the accused.

Asked by Mark Dennis, for the prosecution, why she had changed her story, the girl maintained it was because she still believed at that stage she would be in trouble for not helping Damilola. Asked whether she was telling the truth in court yesterday, she nodded her head vehemently and said "yes".

In his cross-examination, Courtenay Griffiths, QC for one of the brothers accused her of fabricating her account or even lying about the fact she was at the scene of the attack. "Everyone is watching you now. We know that you like that, don't you?'' said the QC.

"You like to be the centre of attention, the police have made you feel incredibly brave."

The girl denied she was enjoying her experience. As the exchanges continued, her voice began to rise "It doesn't matter how much you want to catch me out, you'll not catch me out, because I am not lying", she said.

"Which particular police officer told you to make that little speech?", asked Mr Griffiths.

There were angry mutterings from the detectives present, "Jesus", whispered one of them. Mr Taylor shook his head.

The acrimony continued. At one point, the girl exclaimed "I am not going to answer you. I don't like the way you are talking to me, like a little girl. If you talk to me like that, I'll talk to you back like a little boy."

"But you are a little girl, you are 14 years old", said Mr Griffiths. Just after 3.30pm, the girl said she could not continue and wanted to go home. The judge, Mr Justice Hooper adjourned the trial until this morning.

The four accused have pleaded guilty to murder, manslaughter, and assault with intent to rob.

The case continues.