A driver lost control of her car at Bluewater and killed an elderly woman when it reversed over her at speed, a court heard.

Pensioner Claire Bishop and her husband Roy were walking back to their car at the Greenhithe shopping centre when the tragedy happened.

Mrs Bishop, 71, was left under former childminder Dawn Chedd's automatic people carrier and died five days later. A two-year-old child in the Vauxhall Zafira escaped injury.

Maidstone Crown Court was told Chedd was found lying on the ground, appearing to be unconscious, with the driver's door open.

"He saw the people carrier just as it was about to hit his wife. There was, he says, no time to react. It hit her, she went with the car and she was run over..." - Catherine Donnelly, prosecuting

The 49-year-old, of Cranleigh Drive, Swanley, denies causing death by careless driving, claiming she had fainted when the car went out of control.

Catherine Donnelly, prosecuting, said Mr and Mrs Bishop, from Bexleyheath, had been shopping on January 4 last year.

As they walked to their car at about 3pm and passed the parked Zafira, Mr Bishop saw the driver's door was open and Chedd was reaching in. She was wearing a long coat.

"The next thing Mr Bishop recalls was a sudden screeching of tyres and three bangs from behind," Miss Donnelly told the jury of seven men and five women.

"He saw the people carrier just as it was about to hit his wife. There was, he says, no time to react. It hit her, she went with the car and she was run over.

"The people carrier had travelled in an arc out of its parking bay, hitting the other cars, Claire Bishop and finally coming to rest on the front of a car that was parked in the same row of bays that the people carrier had emerged from."

Mrs Bishop was half under the car and bleeding from her head. The car was still in reverse gear with the engine running. Attempts to get it out of gear and move it failed.

Chedd was lying between two cars that had been hit. She was still there when an ambulance and firefighters arrived.

Mrs Bishop was taken, critically injured, to London's King's College Hospital. She died on January 9.

Witness Nigel Holmes said the people carrier's engine was revving so fast before it crashed he thought it was a "boy racer".

The prosecutor said the car was not found to have any faults and a collision investigator believed Chedd must have attempted to stop it by putting her foot on the brake but caught the accelerator instead.

The trial continues.