Bikers' body 'lay in road for hours'

THE BODY of a 27-year-old Australian motorbike rider killed after smashing into a bus stop in Finsbury Park lay in the road for three hours after the crash.

Andrew Martin Johnson, a maintenance engineer born in New South Wales, of Haslemere Road, Crouch End, died of multiple injuries after a traffic accident in Crouch Hill near the junction with Heathville Road.

The bike is reported to have hit a bus stop with such force that it careered into a silver Nissan Micra parked in front.

No other vehicles were involved.

Police and ambulance services were called to the crash site last Thurday at 1.50am and arrived five minutes later.

Mr Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.

But musician David Thomas, 36, who lives in a flat near the bus stop says the body was still in the road when he looked out the window three hours later.

He said: "About 5am I saw a body two yards from the bus stop, underneath a red blanket."

He added: "He was still lying there. The bike was mashed up against the back of the Nissan Micra."

Mr Thomas didn't witness the crash, but said: "The bike must have been going so fast that it couldn't quite get round the bend and smashed into the bus stop. He must have been doing about 60 or 70 [miles per hour] to do that sort of damage." Residents sleeping in nearby flats heard sounds at the time of the crash described as being like "kids kicking stuff in the road" or bins being moved but said it was not loud enough for them to investigate.

An inquest into the death was opened and adjourned until September at St Pancras Mortuary on Tuesday.

The collision is being investigated by the police Collision Investigation Unit at Euston.

Roads were closed after the crash but had opened again by 11am the same day.

Police are appealing for witnesses to the collision and anyone with information is asked to call the CIU on 020 7321 9955 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.