A NEIGHBOUR told how she heard screams for help coming from a burning Cwmbran house.

Carl Mills, 28, of no fixed abode, is charged with the murder of Kayleigh, 17, her mum Kim Buckley, 46, and her baby daughter Kimberley, six months.

They all died when a fire ripped through their home in Tillsland, Coed Eva, Cwmbran, on September 18, 2012.

Mills denies the charges.

Laura Williams had just put her baby back to bed when she heard a woman's screams before 3.30am.

She told the court she thought it was teenagers messing around at first but when they continued she went to the bedroom window to check.

She said: "I got up and looked because I thought that someone may have been in trouble.

"The woman was shouting 'help', I could hear a male voice outside then I could here a woman shouting 'the house is on fire call 999'.

"Then the woman screamed 'it's hot, it's hot, I'm burning."

Mrs Williams saw thick dark smoke and heard explosions coming from the front of the Buckley home and later saw flames.

She woke her husband, Scott Williams, who gave her his mobile phone and told her to call the emergency services before he ran to see if she could help.

He told the jury his wife shouted after him: "Don't you dare go in that house."

Mr Williams said he saw flames coming from the top left hand corner window at the rear of the property.

He ran to the front door to see if he could get in but was met by a "blanket" of flames.

He said: "It is a PVC door, I made an assessment not to try and go in, it's plastic, if it had melted I would have been severely burned."

Mr Williams went around the back of the house where he found a ladder in a neighbour's garden. But as he looked up he saw the remaining upstairs window start to fall out.

"I thought there was nothing I could do," he added.

Another neighbour, Rachel Williams, told how she heard a man in his later 20s having an angry phone conversation on Henllys Way the night before the fire.

She did not know the man, could not hear much of the conversation except for swear words, but said his accent was not a local one. He was wearing baggy, dark clothing and a hoody with the hood up.

She watched him from her window for around 15 minutes around 11.42pm before he disappeared near Half Way Stores and into East Roedin and West Roedin estate, she said.

The jury also heard evidence from Stephen Gate, who is a fingerprint officer at the joint scientific investigation unit at Police Headquarters in Bridgend.

He told how following chemical treatment and visible examination of a silver Welcome Home banner found in a bin at the side of the Buckley home he detected a mark.

He said he had "no doubt" the mark matched Mills' fingerprint.