Teenager April Bright who is accused of murder told police when she was found in a cupboard: "I don't know why they're trying to pin this on me."

Police found Bright just hours after Mohamoud Hassan was stabbed to death at the Criterion pub following last year's St Paul's Carnival.

In a series of interviews which followed, Bright was adamant she neither murdered Mr Hassan or saw anyone else do it.

Bright, then 17, of Wilder Street, St Paul's, admits manslaughter but denies murder.

It is alleged she stabbed Mr Hassan in the neck after the carnival because he was in a group of Somali men making "a lecherous nuisance of themselves".

Detective Sergeant Nigel Curnock, of Bristol's major and serious crime department, told the court he was involved in the investigation from day one and also took part in Bright's arrest.

DS Curnock said that he visited Bright's home at 3.15pm on September 16 last year after Mr Hassan's killing in the early hours of that day, and he found Bright sitting in a cupboard in an upstairs bedroom.

He told the court: "April Bright was in there and I said, 'Hello, April'.

"She climbed out and sat on the bed.

"She initially said, 'I don't know why they're trying to pin this on me.'"

DS Curnock explained how he took Bright from the bedroom, away from some children in there, and she was arrested on a landing and made no comment.

He told the jury: "I directed officers to search the room and the cupboard.

"The cupboard had a ply-board back which was loose and officers found a black-handled knife there."

The jury was read transcripts of several interviews then conducted with the teenager.

In the first, Bright told police: "I got a phone call about two hours before they (police) came to my house.

"Everyone was going round saying I stabbed the dude, and I didn't stab the dude."

Bright explained that she had gone to the Criterion with her family and friends and they had sat in the beer garden, socialising.

She said she became aware that a Somalian man was lying at the front door of the pub, attended to by a woman with short blonde hair, and she thought he was drunk.

During the course of the interviews, Bright told police that, after falling over outside the Inkerman pub, she had cut her finger on a piece of glass and she had used tissue paper both at the Inkerman, as well as the Criterion, to dab her bleeding hand.

Bright maintained that she didn't stab anyone and she didn't see anyone doing any stabbing.

Earlier, Geoffrey Robinson, a forensic scientist, told the jury blood stains matching both Mr Hassan and Bright were found at the Criterion.

Matthew Foster, who conducts identity procedures on behalf of police, told the court several witnesses identified Bright from a video line-up of females fitting her description, though some witnesses failed to identify her.

Home office pathologist Dr Hugh White told the court he carried out a post mortem on Mr Hassan and concluded Hassan died from a single stab wound to his neck which penetrated his voice box, which measured 2.5cm wide and went into his body to a depth of 3cm.

Dr White said, at the time of his death, Mr Hassan was just under twice the drink-drive limit for alcohol and a urine test gave a suggestion of cannabis use.

He added that only relatively minor force may have been used to produce the fatal wound.

The trial continues at Bristol Crown Court.