A BUS driver who killed a disabled man riding an electric scooter across a dual carriageway in Welwyn Hatfield has been ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work.

Steven Conisbee, 54, of Hanover Green, Hemel Hempstead, was sentenced to a community order yesterday at St Albans Crown Court yesterday, after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving.

He was returning his Uno bus to the depot on the afternoon of July 27 last year when he hit 62-year-old multiple sclerosis sufferer Kenneth Mills on the Stanborough Link Road, just after leaving the Boat Roundabout.

Prosecutor Ann Evans described how Mr Mills was dragged along and tipped out of his buggy in front of the bus, and died at the scene.

Conisbee, shaking and in a state of shock, told a lorry driver who stopped at the scene: "I never saw him."

A statement from Mr Mills' daughter Angela Hale told of a positive man, who never complained, despite his devastating diagnosis in 1987.

He had served in the army for a number of years before retraining as a joiner.

He had bought the scooter only a month before, and was loking forward to regaining some independence.

Conisbee gave a negative breath test, and had not been speeding.

His barrister Giles Curtis-Raleigh blamed a "momentary lapse of concentration", and said his client , filled with remorse, would never drive professionally again.

Judge Martin Griffith imposed a 12-month community order, including 200 hours unpaid work, and banned Conisbee from driving for two years.

He told him: "What you did brought an end to the renaissance of Mr Mills' life and continuing his role as father and grandfather.

"I know what you did will live with you for ever."