May 15, 2008

Sila murder defence says 'self-preservation' took over

Edgeware Road murder trial?? Day 15????????? By David Clarkson

Lipine Sila?s defence says he never intended to hurt or kill anyone in the seven seconds when he sped along Edgeware Road through a crowd of partygoers. They will say ?the human instinct for self-preservation took over?.

Defence counsel Pip Hall asked the High Court jury to consider 23-year-old Sila?s situation as he drove away from the out-of-control party a year ago.

He asked them to consider whether he had any other options but to drive away, after he had been assaulted twice near the car.

?Was he frightened? Was he attempting to flee for safety?s sake?? asked Mr Hall. ?He drove away as an act of self-preservation to defend himself from on-going assault on him which he thought could be life threatening.?

In the heat and agony of the moment, nobody would have had the chance to weigh up the situation. ?Escape was really his only option to defend himself.?

Sila did not think of the people at the time. ?He didn?t think of anything. His mind was blank. You may think that is indicative of a state of blind panic.?

He had no intention of harming people who were 80m away from the people who had been attacking him.

He had been subjected to two serious assaults in the moments before he drove away.

At that time, a large number of young people had been in the roadway, many of them disorderly and intoxicated. Sila had no way of knowing that help was at hand with the police forming up at a service station a block away.

?At the time he took off, in his mind he was outnumbered by people outside the vehicle. In his mind, it was a life-threatening situation with no help at hand,? said Mr Hall. ?Getting out of the car was not a safe option.?

He said the crown allegation that Sila aimed the car into the crowd was not tenable. His vision had been obscured from the time the car?s windscreen was shattered.

?As to his intent, the defence says the human instinct for self-preservation took over and impelled him to drive forward in his state of panic. In that state he was deprived of his power to think of the consequences.?

The defence will call a series of eyewitnesses to give evidence.

The first was a girl aged 15 at the time, who was with a group of friends in a car opposite where the car driven by Sila had been parked.

She saw the driver attacked as he crossed the road holding a T-shirt to a bleeding head wound. She then saw him attacked beside the car. She thought she could see that attacker hitting the bleeding man?s head against a lamppost.

He broke off the fight, got in the car, but got out again to help a friend who was fighting.

At the time he drove off in the car, a large male in a leather jacket, looking angry and shouting, was bashing on the car?s windows.

Sila is charged with the murder of two 16-year-old schoolgirls, and intentionally wounding or causing grievous bodily harm to eight other people injured as he drove through the crowd. The trial in the High Court at Christchurch is before Justice Fogarty and a jury. Sila denies all charges.