A HIT-AND-RUN driver laughed and screamed "watch this" before leaving a young mother dying in a pool of blood.

David Little, 25, admitted killing 35-year-old Angela Armstrong in front of her teenage niece after driving his white Bedford van at her.

On the first day of his murder trial at Newcastle Crown Court yesterday, the Crown Prosecution Service accepted his guilty plea to manslaughter.

Little admitted terrorising the mother-of-one by driving towards her and past her house at high speed. He also admitted driving his van straight at her in an attempt to scare her before leaving her to die.

The court heard how Little had been driving erratically and shouting before speeding into Ms Armstrong as her 16-year-old niece leapt clear.

Witness Carl Steel, 16, said: "He was laughing and smiling. They were on the pavement by a little bit of grass at the junction. He drove across the grass and hit one of the women."

Ms Armstrong had been in the North-East for six weeks after moving from Blackpool, when she was hit near the junction of Pottery Bank and Windhill Road, in Walker, Newcastle, on September 11.

Little, of St Anthony's House, Walker, fled the scene but handed himself into police.

He will be sentenced on April 6 after the preparation of reports.