An expert Police witness yesterday testified that he "had to look twice'' at the wreckage of a German student's bike after a fatal accident "because it did not even look like a motorcycle''.

And Police accident investigator Sgt. Gary Venning added: "Never, in all my time had I seen a motorcycle in such a condition, other than one that had actually been burned.'' He also said evidence at the crash site suggested that the car of Mauritian-born Bissoonduthsing Ramchurn was "mostly on the wrong side of the road'' when it hit 23-year-old Catrin Schaefer's rented Peugot scooter.

And Sgt. Venning noted the absence of skid marks at the vehicles' point of impact, "which suggests (Ramchurn) did not make any attempt to stop right after the collision''.

After hearing his testimony, the five-man, seven-woman Supreme Court jury sitting in on the manslaughter trial of Ramchurn was taken to Stonecrusher Corner on Kindley Field Road to see for themselves the site of the tragic accident in which Ms Schaefer, who was visiting Bermuda on a biology trip from Heinrich Heire University in Dusseldorf, received fatal injuries in the early hours of September 27, 1998.

Ramchurn denies the manslaughter charge and also that he caused her death by dangerous driving and by driving while over the legal alcohol limit.

Two days of proceedings already saw Crown counsel Sandra Bacchus extract testimonies from several witnesses including Policemen, firemen and civilians.

On Monday, zoology professor Charles Bridges said Ms Schaefer "just ordered Coke'' while celebrating at Swizzle Inn in the hours before the accident, adding that she was a "confident and prudent'' rider.

Her former friend, Thorsten Kisters, who was riding his cycle just behind Ms Schaefer, said he saw a car "driving at a high speed on our side of the road'' just before the fatal accident occurred.

And on Tuesday, a Swizzle Inn bartender described how she served Ramchurn and his friend three rounds of drinks, just over an hour before the head-on collision.

Police officer testifies to crash carnage Also Police Sgt. Junior Watts, who oversaw a breathalyser test that the St.

George's resident took afterwards, said results showed that he had 105 milligrams of alcohol to every 100 millilitres of blood in his body.

But possibly the key witness in the Crown's case was Sgt. Venning, who has years of experience investigating accidents and made an examination of the crash site shortly afterwards.

Asked to detail his findings to the court, he noted scrape-marks and debris on the western side of the road indicated that Ramchurn's Toyota Starlet had been "mostly on the wrong side of the road'' when it hit Ms Schaefer's cycle.

Sgt. Venning said the damage caused to both vehicles in the collision indicated that it had been a "very high speed collision'', adding the lack of more scrape marks showed the bike "must have been airborne'' just afterwards.

And although he could not give an exact estimate of speed, he said the damage was consistent with a collision of vehicles travelling at a speed "significantly greater'' than Bermuda's 35 kph limit.

Sgt. Venning added: "Another interesting factor was the absence of skid marks at the point of impact because the instinctive reaction of a driver after such a crash is to hit the brakes... But there were no such marks and therefore no evidence to suggest that the driver of the Toyota attempted to stop.'' In fact the car, extensively damaged in the crash, was found nearly 60 metres away leaking oil and radiator fluid and with the injured Ramchurn at the wheel.

In cross-examination, defence counsel Philip Perinchief suggested that many of Sgt. Venning's findings were based on "guesswork'' and not completely reliable.

But Sgt. Venning said: "I made a reasonable deduction based on the facts available.'' Mr. Perinchief continued: "Don't you think that saying the motorcycle didn't look like one was a bit of an exaggeration?'' Sgt. Venning replied that when he first saw it, "it just looked like a mess of twisted metal and wires''.

Another of Mr. Perinchief's suggestions was that the scrape-marks of the cycle's undercarriage alone were not enough for Sgt. Venning to properly determine the vehicles' point of impact.

But, again, he replied: "I am quite satisfied that the evidence in hand helped me make the best deduction I could.''