A teenager who stabbed to death a political refugee while he was out on bail for a previous machete attack has been jailed for life.

Steven Roberts, 18, plunged a knife into the chest of Iranian Payman Bahmani, 30, as he was helping to defend the home of fellow refugees.

Mr Bahmani was murdered a day before he was due to open a restaurant in Brighton where he planned to start a new life with his girlfriend, Sonia Voza.

Roberts, who was a member of a violent Edinburgh gang known as the Young Westburn Team, had carried out an attack causing life-threatening injuries to another man in Scotland in January last year.

Sentencing him at Newcastle Crown Court, Mr Justice Henriques said: "You are a thoroughly dangerous young man."

Roberts, of Morvenside, Edinburgh, was also given two years for affray, to which he had pleaded guilty, in relation to an incident earlier the same day in August last year.

He had held a knife to Mr Bahmani's throat after shouting what the judge described as "the most shocking racial abuse".

The judge said: "There is no crime known to law as racially- aggravated affray.

"Had there been, you would have been guilty of it."

Earlier, during the two-and-a-half-week trial, the jury had heard about the plans of Mr Bahmani, who lived in Sunderland, to move to Brighton.

He had planned to leave the North-East on Tuesday, August 27 but delayed his journey until the Thursday. He was murdered on the Wednesday.

He had been visiting friends at their Peel Street home when they came under attack. The group had decided to confront their tormentors but turned and fled as they saw Roberts approaching clutching a knife in each hand.

But Mr Bahmani, the jury heard, froze with fear. Roberts thrust one blade into his chest and slashed at the sleeve of his shirt with the other.

As the victim bled heavily from his wounds his friends carried him indoors but he begged them to leave him outside "so they can see I am dying", prosecuting counsel Paul Sloan told the court.

He was later taken to Sunderland Royal Hospital where he died.

Joseph Rutherford, 23, of Gray Road, Sunderland, was found guilty of affray. Sentencing is due to take place at a later date.

Gavin Gash, 27, of Hedworth Court, Sunderland, was acquitted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, as was Rutherford.

Shortly after Mr Bahmani's death, Ms Voza's daughter Francesca, 22, said her mother's life had been wrecked.

She said: "My mum and her boyfriend were due to move to Brighton. They had made plans to open a restaurant there. Instead, she has gone to lay flowers at the spot where he died. She is heartbroken."

Ms Voza said: "All Payman ever wanted was a happy life and his own business. He worked very hard when he came to this country and is well-known to everyone in the restaurant business in the city."