THE face of terrified Khyra Ishaq, who was starved to death, will haunt pensioner Bhagu Patel until his dying day.

Bhagu, 77, glanced up and saw the seven-year-old girl at a bedroom window as he swept the alley adjoining the house where he has lived for 40 years.

Khyra Ishaq ... starved to death

The passageway passes behind Khyras home and she was gazing down at him, wearing a T-shirt and headscarf.

At first he thought nothing of it and carried on working.

But 15 minutes later he realised the child was still there staring at him with a look of desperation in her eyes. Bhagu said yesterday:

I now realise from the pictures Ive seen that the person I saw at the window was the starving little girl Khyra.

She was not crying but she looked tired, worn out, helpless. She did not signal to me but just stared straight at me.

Her eyes were squinting, like she was in some kind of controlled agony. But she was silent.

Kicked

I assumed she was off school because she was ill or something.

Looking back now, I am sure she was locked in that room without food.

If Id known what was going on in that house I would have run in and kicked the door down and given those children food from my table.

Bhagu takes pride in cleaning the alley every day in Handsworth, Birmingham.

Neighbours used to help him keep the communal area tidy.

But the social landscape always a racial mix of Asian, West Indian and white, working class families has changed in the last ten years.

An influx of asylum seekers, migrant workers and refugees from all over the world has splintered the previously cohesive community.

Tribute ... Khyra's aunt Valerie

Ex-postal worker Bhagu saw Khyra at the window a few days before police and medics found her lying severely emaciated in her home last Saturday.

She and her three brothers and two sisters aged four to 12 were taken to hospital but Khyra died of starvation. The youngsters Jamaican-born Muslim mother Angela Gordon, 33, and her lover Junaid Abuhamza, 29, have been charged with causing or allowing her death.

Bhagu said: When my old neighbours saw me cleaning the alley they would join in and help. But the newcomers live only with their own people and dont mix outside.

No one knows what goes on behind the closed doors. Thats why this little girl died.

Now Ill never forget the look on her face.

A mass of tributes to Khyra were laid outside her now boarded-up house yesterday.

They included *la*hms from her aunt Valerie Francis. And the girls gran left a cuddly toy white dog with pink ears, with the message: God bless. In loving memory, to my beautiful granddaughter. You will be missed. Lots of love Grandma Isoline.

Poignant ... note

An anonymous note read: What kind of world do we live in? Does nobody care anymore? Where people turn a blind eye to whats going on?

I dont know this little girl but when I saw the news I had to put some flowers here.

God bless, no more suffering, youre in a better place x.

An independent inquiry into Khyras death was launched by Birmingham Safeguarding Children Board. Local Labour MP Khalid Mahmood claimed she and her siblings were punished for asking to see their biological father, Abu Zaire Ishaq.