“It’s something we will all carry with us for the rest of our lives.”

Reg Marshall, a 79-year-old cyclist whose wife of 57 years was hit and killed by a new motorist “driving too fast for the road”, believes that the driver responsible being sentenced to community service instead of a custodial sentence “sends a wrong message out to young drivers”.

Last month, we reported that Aly Albosati, 27, had been ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work and received a 20-month driving ban when he was sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court, having admitted causing Patricia Marshall’s death by careless driving.

The collision happened back in June 2023 when Reg and Pat Marshall were on a cycling holiday in Scotland. During their 57-year marriage they had toured Britain and Europe by bike over many decades, but were hit by Albosati just a month after the new driver had passed his test.

Albosati’s lawyer accepted that his client was “driving too fast for the road”, even if he was legally within the speed limit. The new driver was said to have “misjudged” a right-hand bend [pictured in the direction of travel in the image illustrating this article], mounted the verge and lost control of his vehicle. The Marshalls were travelling in the opposite direction and were hit, Reg suffering “extensive bruising” while, tragically, Pat was airlifted to hospital and died a few hours later.

While the judge, Paul Ralph, told the court he was aware of the “devastating effect” of the fatal collision, he opted against a custodial sentence, instead ordering Albosati to undertake 180 hours of community service. The 27-year-old was also banned from driving for a period of 20 months.

A few weeks on from the sentencing, Reg Marshall has told the BBC he believes Albosati was treated too leniently and that the sentence “sends a wrong message out to young drivers”.

The widower suggested his wife’s death should act as a warning to drivers and appealed to people to remember “it doesn’t take much of a mistake to make a disaster”.

“It’s something we will all carry with us for the rest of our lives,” he said.

A student at the time of the collision, last month’s sentencing hearing heard how Albosati had only passed his driving test a month earlier, but had also been fined £300 for a road traffic offence six months before the fatal crash, at a time when he was still a learner driver.

Albosati’s lawyer accepted that his client was “driving too fast for the road”. The court also heard that the new driver “misjudged” a right-hand bend, prosecutor Paula Wedlock explaining how he had “mounted the verge” and lost control of his vehicle.

“He has applied excess bearing to the right,” she said. “Excess steering caused his Ford Fiesta to rotate in a clockwise direction and cross the carriageway in a south-west direction. Whilst rotating and out of control, the front corner collided firstly with the bike ridden by Mr Marshall, then the bike ridden by the deceased, causing both to be knocked off.”

The sentencing hearing came just two weeks after the government unveiled plans to consult on introducing a three or six-month minimum learning period for new drivers. The Department for Transport said it would “give learner drivers more time to develop their skills in varied conditions such as night driving, adverse weather, and heavy traffic”. Drivers aged 17-24 represent just six per cent of licence holders but are involved in 24 per cent of fatal and serious collisions.