POLICE officers sped to the scene of Choudhry Zishan's brutal murder within minutes of a flurry of 999 calls reporting two men violently pummelling their victim.

Eastleigh's Michelle Johnson this morning told Winchester Crown Court how she heard a van hurriedly pull up shortly after she spoke to the emergency operator.

“I looked out of the window and could see two policemen running down the road,” she said.

“We went outside but they told everyone to go back into their homes.”

Mrs Johnson said threatening shouts demanding money woke her from a fitful slumber in her attic bedroom in the early hours of March 30.

She went downstairs and peeped through net curtains on the ground floor to see a man standing in the middle of the town's High Street.

When he turned towards her, Mrs Johnson quickly ducked down to avoid being seen.

In her 999 call, which was played to the jury, she told police how she could hear cars being smashed into and the shouted words “I've got him in a headlock”.

The court has previously heard how the 35-year-old newsagent received fatal head and brain injuries in an unyielding savage attack in which he was punched, kicked, thrown against parked cars and had his head stomped on.

The frenzied assault is said to have left one of his attackers covered in blood.

Brothers Samuel McKinley, 25, of no fixed abode, and Jonathan, 23, of Devon Drive, Chandler's Ford, both deny murder.

Mrs Johnson's husband Richard also gave evidence, saying one of the attackers was wearing a light-coloured long-sleeved sweatshirt and he believes the victim's pockets were rifled as he lay in the road.

A total of three 999 calls were made to police by residents awoken by shouting and the sounds of Mr Zishan being killed at around 4.30am on the morning the clocks went forward.

Proceeding.