THE family of a Hampshire teenager killed when he was knocked off his motorbike believe the sentence given to the young driver responsible is “a waste of time”.

Yesterday the man behind the wheel of the car that hit Nicholas Hobbs’ motorbike was sentenced to 100 hours unpaid work and banned from driving for 12 months.

Daniel Cook, 22, of Gudge Heath Lane, Fareham, was also fined £250 at Portsmouth Crown Court, after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving.

The court heard how Nick had been thrown from his Suzuki bike on August Bank Holiday last year, outside the Silver Fern pub in Warsash.

Cook, who was driving his Volkswagen Golf, failed to see the 19-year-old coming in the opposite direction, as he turned right to go into the pub car park.

He only noticed Nick when one of his four passengers shouted “bike” as he turned, but by that stage a collision was unavoidable.

Nick,who lived nearby in Saxon Close,was rushed to Southampton General Hospital but died later from his injuries.

In mitigation Daniel Riley said that the collision was a dreadful accident that happened due to a moment of inattention by Cook.

Judge Roger Hetherington sentenced Cook to a 12-month community order, doing 100 hours of unpaid work, disqualification from driving for a year and ordered him to pay £250 in costs.

Speaking to the Daily Echo outside court, Nick’s dad Gordon said that they had hoped for a longer driving ban.

He said: “What hurts us the most is that he has never said sorry to us, that would have been an olive branch. I know it was an accident, I know he didn’t do it maliciously but at the end of the day he killed Nick.

“He will never know the damage he has done to our family. A better punishment for him would have been to come to Nick’s funeral and see how devastated his sisters were.

“We know that nothing can ever bring him back but I think he should have been banned from driving for at least three years, 12 months is just a waste of time.”