Years of misery endured by a Pakistani family living next door to British National Party activists were outlined yesterday in the murder trial of a Muslim man accused of stabbing his far-right neighbour to death in the street.

Keith Brown, the dead man, was a friend of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, and was said to have resented the Asian family building a grand house next to his home in Stoke-on-Trent.

Habib Khan, 50, denies murdering Mr Brown, 53, with an 8in blade during a fracas last summer.

The accused man's son, Azir Habib Saddique, 24, told police that they had endured a nightmare since buying the property. According to Mr Saddique's statement, which was read to a jury at Stafford Crown Court, the Khans were called “Pakis” and their windows were smashed nearly every other day. There were threats to stab the whole family, Mr Saddique told detectives.

He became angry after his father was hit. The jury was told that Mr Brown's eldest son, Ashley Barker, 20, also a BNP activist, was convicted last year of assaulting Mr Khan. On the day that Mr Brown was killed, Mr Saddique told police, he saw the white man outside his home with a brick.

A fight broke out between Mr Brown and Mr Saddique's older brother, Khazir Habib Saddique. Azir said he tried to stop the fighting but Mr Brown tried to poke his eye out. It took seven police interviews before Mr Khan confessed that he had used a knife to stab Mr Brown and he made the admission only after being confronted with closed-circuit television footage seized from his PC.

Habib Khan said that he came out of his house on an afternoon last July to find Mr Brown squeezing Azir by the neck and threatening to kill him. Mr Khan feared that his son would be unable to breathe.

“I was keeping in my mind that when they saw the knife they would finish it but nobody listened to me,” Mr Khan told police. “I pushed the knife into his back only a little bit.”

Mr Brown died of a 5in deep stab wound that cut through a main artery. Mr Khan denies murder. He and Azir Habib Saddique deny wounding Mr Barker. Khazir Habib Saddique has admitted wounding Mr Barker. The trial continues.

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