KEY POINTS:
A witness says he believes murder accused Lipine Sila came at his brother wielding a bottle minutes before a car driven by the 23-year-old man sped through the crowd outside a Christchurch party, striking 28 people and killing two schoolgirls.
Two Crown witnesses described the street fighting that
took place among the people crowded outside an out-of-control party on May 5, on the second day of Sila's trial on two charges of murder and eight of intentionally wounding or causing grievous bodily harm.
He denies all charges in the High Court at Christchurch.
Jane Ada Young and Hannah Perkins Rossiter, both 16, were killed in the incident.
Ian Howard Hitchcock told Justice John Fogarty and a jury that he saw someone in the roadway whom he later recognised as Lipine Sila's brother, Ben.
Ben Sila was challenging everyone to fight him and throwing bottles which hit a passing bus, a police car, and broke the window of a parked car.
"He was being a bloody idiot," he said.
Mr Hitchcock saw his friend Joseph Craig Muir move towards Ben Sila at that stage. Mr Sila backed off but Mr Hitchcock then saw two men come at him and his brother, who were following Mr Muir.
He saw a Samoan man take a swing at his brother with a bottle. His brother ducked the blow and started tussling with the man, who was wearing a red top.
"It was Lipine Sila, I think. I'm pretty sure it was him," he told the court.
He then joined in the brief fight with a second man.
It broke up after a few seconds, and their opponents disappeared.
Mr Hitchcock's group - except for Mr Muir - then got in their car and drove slowly away through the crowd before any damage was done to the vehicle.
Mr Muir, 20, told of chasing Ben Sila away and then returning and recognising one of the men who had fought with his friends. He said he shoulder-charged and punched him beside a parked car.
The man was knocked down, and then knocked down again onto the car's bonnet. The Crown, in its opening yesterday, identified this person as Lipine Sila.
That fight ended when Mr Muir, a fitness instructor student and rugby league player, was struck from behind and began fighting someone else on the footpath.
"I then heard a car revving," said Mr Muir. "I heard a noise like ... duff-duff-duff ... and I saw some bodies lying there."
Cross-examined by defence counsel Pip Hall, Mr Muir said he had not seen any group of skinheads at the gathering, had not heard white power slogans, and did not hear or use the words "nigger" or "coconut".
He acknowledged he broke his knuckle in the fighting that night, but did not know when.
He denied that he had tried to get into the car that Lipine Sila had driven to get people out of it.
He did not see people trying to smash the car with bottles, and did not see the back window get smashed.
The jury spent the morning being taken by bus to the scene of the incident, to view the stretch of suburban road with markers showing where those injured had been. The trial continues tomorrow.
- NZPA
