A VAN driver who witnessed a crash in which a cyclist was killed told jurors how he was the first person to speak to the woman accused of causing the smash.

Iain Chalmers said he asked Julia Moore if she was all right.

“She replied ‘yes’ and I got the impression she wasn’t injured,” he said. “She was in shock and distress.”

The prosecution has claimed Moore, 31, “raced” through the traffic lights at the junction of Millbrook Road West and Regents Park Road in Southampton, and struck 27-year-old cyclist Greg Dear.

Mr Chalmers told Southampton Crown Court how he had stopped at the lights as he took his girlfriend into town.

He said. “I saw the bicycle fly up, the man roll over the car and fall face down. I got out and checked for a pulse. My girlfriend rang for an ambulance.”

Mr Chalmers said he had not been aware of the car going across the lights. He said: “The first time I saw the brake light on was on the other side of the junction.”

Moore, of Rownhams Road, Southampton, who had been driving towards the city centre, denies causing death by dangerous driving.

Proceeding.