Eyewitnesses told a court today that they saw two children banging on the windows and screaming for help as the car they were in plunged into a freezing river and began to sink.

Five-year-old Gabrielle Grady died after she spent two hours trapped in the submerged vehicle, which, Birmingham Crown Court heard, was driven by her father, Christopher Grady.

Her brother Ryan, who was six at the time of the tragedy last February, survived after being pulled from the water by police.

Grady, 42, who is separated from the children's mother, Kim Smith, denies one count of murder and one count of attempted murder.

Nicholas Langstone told the court he watched Grady circle "aggressively" around a field in Evesham, Worcestershire, in a silver estate car, before driving into the River Avon with the two children inside the vehicle.

He told the court: "The first thing I knew I could hear the kids screaming in the car."

He said Grady put his "foot to the floor" and "just went faster and faster, straight down the edge of the riverbank into the river".

• For a full account of today's proceedings see tomorrow's Worcester News.

• Meanwhile crime reporter James Savage has been reporting live from the trial on Twitter. Catch up with his Tweets below.