A FATAL party invitation was circulated by text message in the days before Burnley teenager Jane Young was killed outaide a New Zealand house party, a court was told.

The mobile phne message read: "Party at 95 Edgeware Rd. Saturday night. No gangsters. No fighting. Bring your own. It will be huge."

And it led to up to 1,000 people turning up at the packed suburban house in Christchurch and the party getting out of hand, the court heard.

The High Court at Christchurch, New Zealand, has spent its third day listening to testimony in the trial of 23-year-old factory hand and ex-boxer Lipene Sila.

He is charged with two counts of murder for the deaths of two 16-year-old schoolgirls, including Jane Young formerly of Ightenhill.

One eyewitness described the scene of carnage on the road after the incident.

Daniel Taukiri, a fishing industry worker, said: "There were heaps of people on the road at that time. People screamed to get out of the way, people were crying and calling for their mates. People were flying everywhere. Not a pretty sight, bodies on the road, screaming, yelling out. People were checking each other, getting off the road, getting out of there."

The two girls received unsurvivable brain injuries when Sila - who had been involved in the series of fights in the street outside the party - drove away in a car which slammed through the milling partygoers in the street, the court heard.

He hit 28 people who had spilled out from the party into the street and is on trial before Justice John Fogarty and a jury on two charges of murder and eight charges of intentionally wounding or causing grievous bodily harm.

An 18-year-old shop worker, Corey John Kennedy, told the jury that he wanted to round up his group of friends and leave as soon as he saw how many people were at the party.

He told defence counsel Pip Hall he was overwhelmed by the numbers.

He said he thought it was going to get out of hand because of the number of people he described as skinheads and boyracers who had turned up.

And he said he was alarmed and frightened for himself and his friends.

After three days, the jury has heard varying accounts of the melee in Edgeware Road where hundreds may have gathered to watch the fighting or to leave the party.

By then, the partygoers knew the police were nearby, kitted up to move in and restore order, when the tragedy happened about 11pm on Saturday May 5.

Mr Taukiri, who was a sober driver and had not been drinking on the night, gave evidence of how gang rivalries flared among the crowd. He said knew people in the crowd as members of the Cripps or another gang known as the Bloods or Slobs.

Asked if he had a hatred for the group of Samoans there, he replied, "Yep." He said it was good to watch one of them - who he knew from previous encounters - getting a hiding.

He said he watched the car "weave for groups".

The crown says driving into the crowd was an act of anger, but the defence says Sila was in a blind panic after the fighting during which he was punched and struck on the ear with a bottle that had been thrown.

The defence has questioned witnesses about whether Sila was chased to the car, and whether people were trying to get into it, or clinging to the bonnet and roof when he drove off. No witnesses so far have said they saw those details.

A witness, 19-year-old Matthew William Jenkins, described a group of shaven-headed people being goaded to fight by Sila's brother, Benjamin Sila, who he described as "hyped up".

But he would not describe the group as gang skinheads.