A MOTORIST found guilty of careless driving for his part in an accident which claimed the life of a young motorcyclist has had his disqualification quashed.

A MOTORIST found guilty of careless driving for his part in an accident which claimed the life of a young motorcyclist has had his disqualification quashed.

Richard Hayter-Gare, formerly of Woodfields, Stradbroke, was banned from the road for a year and fined £1,000 after the crash involving his BMW estate and a motorcycle ridden by 20-year-old Jack Foreman.

However, two magistrates and Judge Peter Thompson, sitting at Ipswich Crown Court, replaced the ban with eight penalty points.

But despite the amendment, Hayter-Gare will not be able to drive until November 15 as he already has six penalty points on his licence, and the new sentence will take him over the disqualification threshold.

The £1,000 fine, plus £320 costs, issued by District Judge David Cooper after his trial at Lowestoft Magistrates in May this year, will remain.

The collision happened when Hayter-Gare pulled out of the Woodfields junction into New Street, in Stradbroke, on March 19 last year. Mr Foreman was thrown from his Suzuki motorcycle and died at the scene from multiple injuries.

Hayter-Gare had denied careless driving but District Judge Cooper found him guilty after a day-long trial.

The father-of-two had told the court he had stopped at the junction and did not see Mr Foreman before pulling out into the main road.

In passing sentence, District Judge Cooper had said a “momentary lapse” in concentration from Hayter-Gare had led to the fatality.

“I can imagine only too well what the family of the deceased are going through and feeling that no sentence is hardly sufficient for the loss of a life. I can, however, only do what the law allows me to,” he said then.

The accident happened only two months before Mr Foreman was due to be married to his fiancée Melissa Stacey, then 18, who was expecting their first child. Since his death, his son, Harvey Jack Foreman, was born.

After the inquest into Mr Foreman's death, his father Nick said: “He's got all this to come, getting through life without a dad. We will have to get him through.”

Mr Foreman had just achieved a long-held ambition to join the RAF and was a senior aircraftsman based at Coltishall.

A former pupil at Stradbroke High School, he followed his brother to become a member of the Flag Deck Party - a group of youngsters who officiate at an annual village Navy Day festival and who raise and lower the flags on top of Stradbroke Church tower throughout the year.