NZPA © [Enlarge photo]

The crown has closed its case in the Christchurch High Court trial of Lipine Sila charged with murdering two schoolgirls and intentionally injuring or causing grievous bodily harm to eight other people in the Edgeware Road party tragedy.

The case concluded this afternoon after 14 days of evidence and submissions.

The trial before Justice John Fogarty and the jury adjourned to Thursday morning when the defence will have the option to open its case. The court is not sitting on Wednesday.

Sila, a 23-year-old factory hand, denies all the charges relating to an incident on May 5, 2007, when the crown says he drove a car through a crowd of partygoers in the roadway and struck 28 of them.

The defence has maintained he drove off in a blind panic after he was assaulted and the car was attacked by people at the huge gathering.

Earlier a young partygoer told the court he saw the moment when the back windscreen of the car driven by Lipine Sila was smashed by a bottle, and it was after three people had already been hit as the car accelerated along Christchurch's Edgeware Road.

The partygoer, who is too young to be legally named, was called as an extra witness today.

The young witness told the jury his attention was drawn to the car when he saw it hitting three people.

He said they "came off the hood or deflected off the side of the car".

He then saw someone standing just to his right throw a bottle hard, which struck the back window of the vehicle and smashed it.

The bottle did not break, but got caught in the car's rear spoiler and rolled off. The windscreen shattered and the glass mostly fell onto the boot.

The car was about 4m away from him, still on the correct side of the road when the bottle struck it.