A speeding BMW driver, who had five children in his car when he allegedly mowed down a young woman, claimed he had hit a bus as he tried to avoid her, a court has heard.

Farid Reza was "shocked" and "showed great concern" in the aftermath of the collision in which 21-year-old Hina Shamim was killed, an eyewitness said.

He was allegedly going more than twice the 30mph speed limit and was racing another BMW motorist when he crashed into the student outside Kingston University on the evening of March 31 2015, jurors have heard.

Reza, 36, and fellow motorist William Spicer, 28, are on trial at the Old Bailey accused of causing death by dangerous driving and injuring a young child passenger.

Resident Paula Cronin heard a huge crash and rushed out of her home in Penrhyn Road to see what had happened, only to be greeted by eerie silence and stillness, the court heard.

Giving evidence, she said: "When I first came out of the house, everything was frozen and still and completely silent and I saw a man take a child from the back of the car.

"At that point I had not seen anything else so it was only when the man started asking me about the girl who had been hit I realised somebody else had been involved in the accident.

"He thrust the child into my arms and rushed off in the direction of the white car. His (the child's) head was pouring with blood. I managed to stem the bleeding."

She told jurors that Reza had said to her: "How is the girl, I did not mean to hit her, she just stepped out ... I tried to avoid her and I hit the bus."

Ms Cronin went on: "He repeated it quite a few times. All the time he showed great concern for this person he said that he had hit.

"He got very, very distressed about the girl he said he had hit. He was standing up, sitting down, taking his jacket off, putting it on and at one point he went unconscious and there was a fireman next to me and I said 'we have to put him in the recovery position'.

"Then he sat bolt upright and asked how the girl was. He was at that point given an oxygen mask and I tried to encourage him to breathe into the mask."

The family of Ms Shamim sat in the well of the court during the evidence, while Reza held his head in his hands in the dock.

Reza, of Kingston-upon-Thames, and Spicer, of Harrow, north-west London, deny the charges against them.