KEY POINTS:
A teenage girl says she was standing only about half a metre from Hannah Rossiter when the schoolgirl was struck by a speeding car driven by Lipine Sila and suffered fatal injuries.
The girl, who cannot be named because of her age, was one of a series of witnesses giving evidence at Sila's trial in the High Court at Christchurch exactly a year after the Edgeware Road party tragedy where two 16-year-old girls were killed.
She said she and her friends were making arrangements to leave the party and were crossing the road when it happened.
"Obviously there was trouble starting. It was just getting a little bit too big."
She and Miss Rossiter and another friend were only about 1m to 1.5m out onto the roadway when she heard a series of bangs. She said they were like gunshots then realised they were either the car backfiring or people being hit by it.
She saw only the red of the car, and did not see it approaching and had no warning before the group was hit.
She had cuts and bruises everywhere, a bruised bone in her ankle, injured ribs, and mild concussion.
Miss Rossiter and Jane Ada Young were struck and sustained non-survivable head injuries as Sila accelerated along Edgeware Road that night, driving away from a series of fights in the street outside the out-of-control party.
Sila faces two counts of murder, and eight charges of intentionally wounding or causing grievous bodily harm to other people as the red Honda crashed through the crowd in the roadway.
The trial before Justice John Fogarty and a jury has now entered its third week. More than 80 witnesses may be called and the trial may last five weeks.
- NZPA
