Kujtim Uruci was one of five Kosovans to be cleared of any wrong-doing following a brawl in the town centre. Magistrates heard they had been defending themselves from thugs who had submitted them to a torrent of racial and physical abuse. He told NICK AHAD why he had sought a better life in Swindon.

EVERY time he closes his eyes, Kosovan Kujtim Uruci sees the images of blood, bodies and mayhem which he fled from in his home country.

It was only in the last few months that Mr Uruci stopped jumping every time a door opened or the phone rang.

He will always be haunted by the horror he has seen things which he wishes more than anything else that he could have left behind in Kosovo when he fled to this country.

It was two-and-a-half years ago that Mr Uruci decided he had to leave Kosovo he says he could no longer live in a place where he always was wondering if he would be alive at the end of the day.

As a Kosovan, Mr Uruci was victim to the merciless treatment of the Serbian soldiers and police of Slobodan Milosevic on a daily basis.

In his home country he lost count of the number of times he was arrested often in the middle of the night when the police would literally break down his door and drag him from his bed and the last time he was arrested and beaten, he was determined it would be the last time ever.

"Every night the Serbian police would come to where I lived and take another man. Sometimes they would beat him and put him in prison, sometimes they would kill him," he said.

"One night they took me and beat me very badly. I was in hospital for two weeks,"

"When I came out of hospital I decided I had to leave. I wanted to come to England everybody said it is a safe place."

So he paid 5,000 Deutschmark, (around £1,500), to get to England.

Mr Uruci says he has no idea where he went on his journey. He climbed into a van, and was in there for a day or two, with about 15 other refugees. They were all then transferred to a boat.

Before they could reach the mainland of Britain, the boat capsized and Mr Uruci was one of four people who survived the swim to the shore he made it with a child on his back.

When he made it to the mainland he found another truck and ended up in London where he was able to stay at a house for refugees.

While he was in London he met Swindon girl Mandy Bates and fell in love.

The two decided they wanted to make a go of their relationship, so on Boxing Day last year he came to Swindon to be with her.

The day he arrived, he was in a town centre pub, drinking with friends who were also refugees, when a group of football thugs approached them and began to taunt them.

The men who were shouting racist abuse at them were members of a group of football fans called the County Ground Lads.

Mr Uruci said: "They were saying things like 'Slobodan is good and Slobodan is right'."

Mr Uruci was stunned at the behaviour of these men.

"I just wanted to have one drink with my friends. I was thinking, 'This is not England, I feel I am back in my home country'."

If the thugs knew that Mr Uruci had seen his cousin shot, had seen countless numbers of people executed in front of his own eyes, had feared for his life on countless occasions, they may not have felt the need to taunt him and his friends.

When he left the pub with his friends, the group ambushed them.

"I was being attacked again. All I have seen is blood and people dying and these people did this," said Mr Uruci.

"We had to fight back."

He and his friends were facing charges of public order offences for their retaliation, but were absolved of any blame at Swindon Magistrates Court on Thursday.

In April this year he married Mandy and the two now live together in Swindon.

But Mr Uruci has still not escaped the pain of the past.

His parents, who fled to America when he left for England, returned earlier this month to Kosovo.

Mr Uruci has not heard from them for weeks and each time the phone rings he prays it is a call to say they are okay.

He is also now facing the agonising wait to see if he will be forced to return to the place of his nightmares, or will be allowed to live a life without fear with his wife in Swindon.