“AN EXCEPTIONALLY tragic and distressing case”.

Those were a judge’s words as he handed a community order to a driver who admitted causing the death of a motorcyclist at Bournemouth Crown Court.

David Rose, 75, of Woodbury Court, Bere Regis, was sentenced to 100 hours unpaid work and disqualified for 12 months after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving.

The court heard that Mr Rose’s Peugeot camper van was turning right off Bovington Lane near the entrance to the Tank Museum at Bovington on May 9, 2009, failing to see Kirk Parsons’ Honda CBR900 motorcycle, which was travelling in the opposite direction and collided with it.

Prosecutor David Richards said witnesses described the van as turning slowly and that there was good visibility along the road. Some witnesses estimated the motorcycle was travelling between 70-90mph, but no physical evidence could confirm that.

The court also heard that Mr Parsons, who was a landscape gardener, had hundreds of friends in Bovington, where he had lived for most of his life.

In a statement to the court, his mother, Hazel Barker, said: “Since Kirk’s death life has had a big hole in it for Kirk’s family and friends. I’m just devastated by this tragedy.”

Mitigating, Nigel Mitchell said Mr Rose had an unblemished record before the accident.

“He cannot offer a reason as to why he failed to see Mr Parsons,” he said, adding that the accident had a “profound effect” on Mr Rose.

Mr Mitchell said: “It cannot be ignored that he is, dare I say it, an elderly man who will never forget what has actions that day resulted in. He will have to, for a very long time, live with that.”

Also ordering Mr Rose to pay £750 costs, Judge Harvey Clark QC said it was a “momentary act of carelessness which had terrible consequences”.

“In my judgement the level of culpability on the part of the defendant was low,” he added.