A DRIVER who left a motorcyclist with devastating injuries after attempting to overtake a lorry has been spared jail.

Bolton Crown Court heard Karl Taylor, aged 40, suffered irreversible brain damage, is almost blind in one eye and has memory loss following the collision on Wigan Road, Westhoughton.

Gilbert Chendjou-Tamba had hit Mr Taylor head on after pulling out from behind the lorry without looking and was found guilty of causing serious injury by dangerous driving following a three day trial.

But sentencing the married father-of-four to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, Judge Timothy Stead said he accepted Chendjou-Tamba's driving fell towards the less serious end of dangerous driving, although its consequences "could hardly have been very much worse."

The court had heard how Chendjou-Tamba, of Langley Drive, Deane, had been driving home after work at 11.20pm when he approached a lorry which was travelling at the 30mph speed limit for Wigan Road.

Chendjou-Tamba pulled out from behind the lorry, which had been making a delivery to Wilkinsons in Wigan, to take a look at the road ahead but then tucked his Toyota Corolla back behind the truck.

However, a short time later he moved out into the road again without looking and collided with Mr Taylor's Yamaha, which was travelling in the opposite direction.

In a statement read to court Mr Taylor's wife, Rebecca told how he still has visits from nurses several times a week, cannot walk unaided and finds speech difficult.

Peter Horgan, defending, said Chendjou-Tamba, originally from Cameroon, had been hard working since coming to England at the start of the century and is genuinely remorseful over what happened to Mr Taylor.

Judge Stead said that Chendjou-Tamba had not been travelling at vastly excessive speed when the collision occurred or driving badly for a protracted period of time.

"You pulled out with a view to looking whether it was safe to pull out - you then pulled back into your correct lane," said Judge Stead.

"What you did next, one one level, was inexplicable. You pulled out to overtake, basing your decision on what you had seen, or rather not seen, on your first look. That has had tragic consequences for Mr Taylor.

"You being in a car and him on a motorcycle, I'm sorry to say, he came off very much worse than you."

In addition to the suspended prison sentence Chendjou-Tamba was ordered to do 150 hours unpaid work and pay £1,000 towards prosecution costs.

He was also banned from driving for four years after which he must take an extended driving test.

Mr and Mrs Taylor were not at court to hear the sentence passed.