A passenger in a crash in which a teenager died following a high- speed joyride ran away from the scene and got a taxi home, a court heard.

Jahid Arien, 20, was one of four youths in a stolen car which was driven the wrong up Ditchling Road, Brighton, before smashing into a taxi, hitting a pensioner and two other cars.

He and fellow passenger Neil Clarke, 20, of Rotherfield Crescent, Brighton, deny aggravated vehicle taking.

Gary Whibley, 18, of Ditchling Road, Brighton, denies causing death by dangerous driving.

A jury at Hove Crown Court was played the tapes of Arien's interview at Brighton Police station the day after the crash which killed 18-year-old Jamie White, of Lomond Avenue, Brighton, and hospitalised both Clarke and pensioner, Donald Priest, who had been walking past at the time.

In a tearful interview Arien told police he and his friends had been out in Brighton and he had been drinking heavily.

He said Whibley had offered him and the two other young men a lift when they were in Swift's nightclub, but denied kno-wing the car was stolen.

The court heard Arien thought a police van was chasing them, with its blue lights flashing, as the car was driven very fast along a bus lane and then the wrong way up Ditchling Road.

In the interview Arien said he got out of the car after the crash and ran around the corner, where he sat for a while before getting a taxi from a rank near St Peter's Church.

The first he knew his friend had been killed and Clarke was in hospital, was next day when Whibley's father telephoned.

The case continues.