A MOTORIST has been fined £1000 after being found guilty of careless driving following an accident which killed a young motorcyclist.

Daemon Diss was taking his 11-year-old son and a friend to football training when his car was in collision with Howie Barnes' motorbike.

Diss, 37, denied careless driving without due care and attention but was found guilty on Tuesday after a two-day trial. He was banned from driving for 12 months.

The court heard that the accident happened at the junction of the A2 with Pump Lane in Rainham.

Howie Barnes, 19, of Shakespeare Road, Gillingham, was riding his Yamaha bike along the A2 with pillion passenger, Stephen Bates, at a speed of between 40 and 45mph. Mr Bates said they passed a left-turning car and saw Diss' car, a Ford Mondeo, turning in front of it. Unable to stop, they hit the side of the vehicle. Howie Barnes died from multiple injuries and Stephen Bates was seriously injured.

Mr Bates said: "I remember seeing the sky as I flew through the air." He denied they had been speeding or passing other vehicles on the nearside, although he accepted they had leaned to the offside as they passed the turning car.

Diss, of Winchester Way, Rainham, said: "I turned into Pump Lane and then I heard a crash, and I thought 'Christ, what's happened.' I thought something had broken in the car. I don't know where the motorcycle came from. I didn't see him."

Annette Moorey, driver of the left-turning car, recalled speaking to Diss after the accident on March 25 last year. She said he asked her, "Is it my fault?"

Diss, manager of his son's under-12s football team, denied he was rushing to get to training on time having travelled from work in Whitstable. "I didn't feel pressurised," he said.