IPSWICH: A lorry driver involved in a fatal road crash was given six penalty points and fined �500.

Andrew Theobold admitted that he was driving without due care and attention when he hit moped rider Kirstie Seaman.

He appeared at South East Suffolk Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday and as he sat waiting to hear his fate the 58-year-old looked visibly distressed.

Tess James, prosecuting, said that Theobold was on his way to work along the A137 in Ipswich early on the morning of November 2009 when he was involved in an accident.

Van driver Ricki Spriggs had collided with Miss Seaman, sending the 24-year-old into the opposite carriageway.

Theobold, of Dahlia Close, Clacton-on-Sea, swerved to avoid Spriggs’s van and hit Miss Seaman as she lay on the ground.

His solicitor told the court: “He initially thought it was a post van because it was red and pulled out to drive around it.”

The court heard that experts believe the first impact killed the moped rider, a former Manningtree High School student.

In August, Spriggs, 52, a former butcher of Wherstead Road, Ipswich, was given a 34-week prison sentence suspended for 18 months.

He was also banned from driving for 18 months and ordered to do 140 hours unpaid work in the community and to pay �100 prosecution costs.

Sentencing Spriggs, Judge John Devaux said Miss Seaman, had been wearing a predominantly white helmet and had a white box on the back of her moped and a police accident investigator had calculated that Spriggs would have had her in his vision for eight seconds and 320 metres before the collision.

Judge David Cooper heard that losing his licence would leave Theobold unable to work.

Instead, he fined him �500 and ordered him to pay �350 in costs with a �15 victim surcharge.

In addition he was given six penalty points on his driving licence.