Manor Park residents have told of their horror as they watched a man fall to his death from a high rise block of flats. The dead man, identified as Abdul Hakim Abubakar, fell from the 14th floor of a tower block in Hathaway Crescent last Wednesday.

Incredibly, it is the same block where 15-year-old Kristy Bamu was found dead just over a year ago.

And 24 hours after this latest tragedy at Old Bailey jury heard how he was tortured and drowned in a tale of horror.

A sister and her partner are on trial for murder.

Last week paramedics from the ambulance and air ambulance services failed to revive Mr Abubakar, 34, and he was pronounced dead at the scene at 9.16am.

Tracy Beadle, who lives in low rise flats next to the tower block, said: “At first we thought it was a coat falling out because it was flapping about.

“But then we realised it was a man. He fell such a long way, you could really see how far he fell, it was from really high up.

“He was clearly still alive when he hit the floor. The police said that he was still alive when he landed when they came knocking afterwards.”

Tracy added: “There’s something about those flats, everything happens in them. Last year, there was a murder on Christmas Day and this year it’s this. It’s always something. It’s just so sad.”

Bernadette Mulhurn, who lives on the floor Mr Abubakar fell from, said she was also saddened by the death.

She said: “We don’t know him because he wasn’t from here, he didn’t live in the Crescent.

“But it’s still just awful, really sad to have that happen.”

Even Mukid Mir, who lives in a block on the other side of the Crescent, said it caused a scene.

He said: “I didn’t see it, my sister came in and said there were loads of police cars outside, about three or four of them.

“I thought someone must have been getting arrested for something but then an ambulance turned up and we heard what had happened.

“I heard it was a man who fell from that tower block over there, it’s the tallest one around here as well so it must have been pretty bad.”

The post-mortem examination will take place in due course and the police are not treating the incident as suspicious.

Next of kin have been informed. An inquest will be held.