Eyewitness describes carpark hit-and-run

Joanne Wang. Photo / Supplied

Hit-and-run victim Joanne Wang was seen leaning across the front left side of a vehicle screaming at the driver, but she disappeared from view seconds after it suddenly accelerated, a High Court jury heard.

Elliot Smith, a former Eagle Air pilot, yesterday told the High Court at Auckland he saw 39-year-old Ms Wang screaming and waving her arms as she ran after a white vehicle in the Manukau mall carpark on June 16, 2008.

Mr Smith was putting his 5-month-old son's pram in his car when he heard a high-pitched yelling.

"I turned around to see what was going on ... A white 4WD was going back reasonably quickly and there was a lady in front of it chasing it."

The Crown alleges the car driver was Christopher Jacob Junior Shadrock, 23.

He allegedly snatched her handbag containing a large sum of cash and fled back to his car, pursued by Ms Wang.

He is on trial charged with her murder and stealing her handbag. He has pleaded not guilty.

Mr Smith said the woman "sounded upset, panicked perhaps, like she needed help".

The vehicle stopped with Ms Wang a few metres in front of it.

"She ended up at the vehicle leaning up over the bonnet. She seemed to be at the left-hand side of it."

Mr Smith said her words were indistinguishable.

After about three to five seconds, he said, the vehicle accelerated "really quickly. Then she disappeared from my view from the left of the vehicle".

Under cross-examination by Shadrock's lawyer, Michele Wilkinson-Smith, Mr Smith said he did not believe the woman was in the middle of the car and more towards the left-hand side.

Mrs Wilkinson-Smith: "She was not at all directly in front of the right-hand side?"

Mr Smith said she was not. He said he could not tell if she went under the bonnet or off to the left and she did not appear to stay on the bonnet for long, probably two or three seconds at most.

He said the vehicle accelerated quickly - "like [with] the pedal down hard" - but he agreed it had little time to gather speed from the time it stopped to when Ms Wang disappeared from view.

Earlier, Ms Wang's husband, Jialin Huang, told the court he visited the Manukau mall on the afternoon of the accident and noticed several police cars there.

He was not aware it was because of what had happened to his wife and only learned that when a colleague told him officers had been in contact with them.

Five other men are on also trial on charges relating to Ms Wang's death.

Vila Lemanu, 25, Maka Tuikolovatu, 21, and Lionel Manaaki Tekanawa, 23, are charged with stealing her handbag.

Tuikolovatu is also charged with helping Shadrock to avoid arrest by hiding the handbag and being an accessory after the fact to murder.

Tekanawa, Lemanu, Mateni Lynch, 20, and Terence Tere, 22, are accused of being accessories after the fact to murder for allegedly burning the Nissan Regulus used in the hit-and-run.