May 16, 2008

Sila defence witnesses describe attacks on car

Edgware Road murder trial?? Day 16???????????? By David Clarkson

?Defence witnesses have described how the car driven by murder accused Lipine Sila was under attack along Edgeware Road on the night of the party tragedy.

The trial has ended its fourth week, and its second day of defence evidence in the High Court at Christchurch. Defence evidence will continue on Monday.

It has been the defence contention at the trial that Sila, a 23-year-old factory hand from Mairehau, had been assaulted twice and the car was under attack when he accelerated through the crowd in the roadway on May 5 last year.

During his seven-second drive along the short stretch of road, the car struck 28 people. He is charged with intentionally wounding or causing grievous bodily harm to eight of them, and murdering two 16-year-old schoolgirls who died of non-survivable head injuries. Sila denies all the charges.

The first defence of witness on Thursday told of a man in a leather jacket hitting the passenger side windows of the car. The vehicle then took off.

Today Brenda Sawyers, a vehicle inspector, said the windscreen of the car was smashed before it reached the front of the Edgeware Road house where many of the partygoers were struck, and the two schoolgirls were killed.

She was standing opposite the house where the party was being held. She said that before she saw the car emerge from behind people, she heard the sound of ?a solid object hitting another solid object?. She was sure this was not the sound of people being struck by the car.

The windscreen already had spider cracks on the driver?s side of the windscreen, which would have made it hard for the driver to see.

She said she saw him swerve try to avoid hitting a teenager on the road, and then miss another couple before it ploughed into the other people.

Another witness, a resident across the road, told of his increasing anxiety as numbers swelled at the out-of-control party on May 5 last year. He watched from in front of his property, and he saw people throwing bottles at the car as it sped up along Edgeware Road.

The trial, before Justice John Fogarty and a jury, will end next week.

NZPA WGT cla