A man accused of causing a drunken road smash that left his friend fighting for life repeatedly changed his story about what happened, Supreme Court heard from his relatives yesterday.

Shawn Gibson’s mother and stepfather explained he swang between admitting he was riding his motorbike when it hit a car, and saying his friend Daniel Wilks was riding.

According to Mr. Wilks’ evidence to Gibson’s trial on Wednesday, he was the pillion passenger on Gibson’s bike after they spent the evening drinking at South Shore bars on April 12 2008.

He told the jury Gibson was speeding at 100 — 110 kilometres per hour in the run up to the crash on South Road, Southampton.

According to prosecutor Takiyah Burgess, the bike collided with the nearside kerb, skidding into the westbound lane where it hit an oncoming car just east of the Rangers ground.

Mr. Wilks, 27, a painter from Hamilton, spent three weeks in a coma after the collision. He suffered fractures to his ribs, collar bone, spine and shin bone, shattered his thigh bone and suffered two punctured lungs.

Gibson, 35, a Marine and Ports worker from Southampton, sustained two hairline fractures to his right ankle, a broken nose and pelvis and chipped bones in his pelvis, plus an injured left knee and road rash.

He denies causing grievous bodily harm to Mr. Wilks, his friend of 15 years, by driving impaired. He further denies driving under the influence and failing to comply with a demand for a breath test.

Giving evidence in the case yesterday, Gibson’s mother Hannah Gibson said he was “very fretful, distressed and upset” when she visited him in hospital on the evening of the crash.

She said he initially told her he was riding the bike but added: “He said that he didn’t want Daniel to take the fall. He said he was going to say he was riding the bike and I told him he just had to tell the truth. Whoever was riding the bike, he just had to tell the truth.”

The defendant’s stepfather Kenneth Rawlins told the jury how he and Gibson confiscated Mr. Wilks’ bike keys from him earlier on the day of the crash. Mr. Wilks had had an argument with his girlfriend and wanted to get on his bike — but they stopped him because he was drunk.

Mr. Rawlins visited both men in hospital after the crash. He described how Gibson initially said Mr. Wilks was riding at the time. However, he changed this version of events after hearing that doctors were fighting to save Mr. Wilks.

“At that point when the doctor said they were trying to save Daniel’s life, then he changed his story and said he was riding,” Mr. Rawlins told the court. But in the next conversation the men had, Gibson went back to saying Mr. Wilks was riding.

Both Ms Gibson and Mr. Rawlins agreed, in answer to questions from defence lawyer Larry Mussenden, that Gibson was in a lot of pain when they visited him at the hospital.

Police constable Tiffany Caisey told the trial that when she spoke to Gibson at the hospital: “He admitted to riding the bike.”

But in a taped interview 13 days after the collision, the accused told PC Caisey Mr. Wilks had repeatedly asked through the day to ride his 135cc Yamaha Sniper bike — and he finally agreed as they left the Southampton Princess bar to head home.

“Daniel was actually riding,” he said of the crash. “It was a big mistake on my behalf. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have let him drive.”

Asked why he initially told the Police he was the driver, Gibson responded that he knew “some of the things Daniel had done during the day” prior to the crash and “I was trying to protect him.”

The case continues.