Driver, 84, 'struggling to deal with Mid Wales death crash'
An 84-year-old who caused the death of a motorcyclist on a main Mid Wales road has been struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of the offence, a court heard.
Geoffrey Humphries, from Manafon, near Welshpool, was turning right off the main A483 at Berriew, near Welshpool, when he hit a Kawasaki motorcycle being ridden by Simon Kerridge-Judd, killing him.
Humphries, who had admitted a charge of causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving at an earlier hearing, appeared at Welshpool Magistrates Court yesterday for sentencing.
In addition to the driving ban, he was placed on a 12 month community order with supervision from probation and ordered to carry out an extended retest before he can have his licence back.
He was also charged £250 costs and a £60 victim surcharge. The court heard how Humphries had been driving along the A483 in a Peugeot camper van on October 17 last year from the Welshpool direction towards Newtown.
He went to turn right towards the village of Berriew on to the B4390 but failed to see coming the other way the motorcycle being ridden by Mr Kerridge-Judd, who was from Trewern, near Welshpool.
Mrs Helen Tench, prosecuting, said eyewitnesses saw Humphries, who was travelling at about 45mph, pulling into the right turning bay, slowing down to about 5mph.
Mrs Tench said: "Witnesses then described how the camper van then began to turn before what was described as something that sounded like a "bomb going off" and a motorcyclist was sent cartwheeling into the air landing face down on a verge.
Mrs Tench said officers visited Humphries later at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital where he told them "he just came out of nowhere".
Mr Jonathan Veasey-Pugh, for Humphries, said: "My client has been suffering flashbacks, took out adverts in local papers saying sorry to the family." Dr Stuart Arrowsmith, for the probation service, added: "The defendant is struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of the offence. His last job was as a driver before he retired and he told me not a day or night goes by when he is not thinking of the family."
Mr Kerridge-Judd's wife, Alice, from whom he had been separated for two years said in a statement: " This has been traumatic for all the family and some days are harder than others."
