A 22-year-old man who was seriously injured after being dragged under a car is today improving in a UK hospital. John Murphy, a postman who lives in the Castel, remains in intensive care, where his condition was described as satisfactory.

Nevertheless, the injuries sustained after being carried for about half a mile from the Fermain Tavern to near the top of Le Val des Terres are extensive.

A family friend described them as ‘truly horrific’.

Police yesterday reported a good initial response to requests for information but repeated their appeal for anyone with information to come forward.

DS Kieran McGrath expected more than 50 statements to be taken and said that process was continuing yesterday.

‘We would like to speak to anybody who was in the area of Fermain Tavern at about 1am on Saturday who might have seen a red vehicle ‘Peugeot 309′ being driven there or later in the Town area,’ he said.

A taxi driver who was collecting somebody from Fermain Tavern at about the time of the incident, whom police also wanted to speak to, contacted them yesterday.

A woman who lives near the tavern said her husband had heard an unusual sound in the road at about that time.

‘He said he heard the sound of wheels spinning on a car but it was as if something was caught underneath,’ she said.

Some Fort Road area residents had been unaware that anything happened until they got up on Saturday morning.

Hazel Walden said she had gone out to fetch her son then gone to bed at about 1.30am.

‘The next thing I knew was when a neighbour phoned up to say that the road was closed,’ she said. ‘I noticed that the dustbin sack had not been taken and the milk hadn’t been delivered.’

Mr Murphy finished up outside Jan Morris’s house but she, too, heard nothing unusual.

‘The first I knew of it was when I couldn’t get out into the road in the morning,’ she said. ‘The road is always busy.’

Joan Timothy, who lives nearby, also heard of the incident the next day. ‘I think it’s all very sad,’ she said.

A Guernsey Post spokesman said the company was doing all it could to support Mr Murphy’s family and its thoughts were with them.