A cancer doctor who killed a retired policeman in a road accident in the island is to keep his job after a compassionate widow issued a plea for leniency.

Kathryn Baker’s husband Kevin died after his motorcycle collided with a car which was turning at Ballaskyr on the main road between Glen Helen and Kirk Michael on Mad Sunday in 2017.

Following a nine-day trial last year, hospital consultant Dr Philip Windrum was found guilty of causing Mr Baker’s death by careless driving.

But he was spared jail when Mrs Baker wrote a note to the Deputy High Bailiff saying she had forgiven the doctor and believed he had been punished enough.

Instead, he was ordered to complete 100 hours community service after then Deputy High Bailiff Jayne Hughes accepted the doctor had made an ’error of judgment’.

When the case came before a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in Manchester, Dr Windrum faced possible career ruin when his fitness to practise medicine was found to be impaired.

But instead, the disciplinary panel suspended him for just one month after reading a letter from Mr Baker’s widow calling for him not to be punished.

In her letter addressed to Dr Windrum himself, Mrs Baker said the doctor was ’in her prayers’.

She wrote: ’I cannot understand why you should be punished twice and I pray for the minimum sanction possible.

’We miss my husband. He loved his bikes and he lived for them. He died doing what he loved, at a time he loved, on an island he loved.’

Tribunal chairman Mrs Claire Sharp said Mrs Baker was ’clearly very understanding’ but rejected pleas for no action to be taken against the doctor.

She said: ’Her views were undoubtedly uncommon, given Dr Windrum’s actions resulted in the death of her husband, but did not in themselves constitute an exceptional circumstance to justify taking no action.

’The tribunal considered Dr Windrum’s conviction to be a serious offence and determined that a period of suspension... would send a signal that causing death by driving without due care and attention is not consistent with the standards expected from the medical profession.’

Road racing fan Dr Windrum, of Cooper’s Mill Avenue, Dundonald, Belfast, was on his 16th visit to the TT and had been watching the racing from Ballaskyr Farm with his father Norman.

He was turning right onto the A3, shortly after the roads open car went past, when the collision occurred with a Yamaha bike riden by Mr Baker, who had been watching the racing from Handley’s Corner.

Mr Baker, 69, was treated for his injuries by the public and paramedics at the scene. He was airlifted to Noble’s Hospital but died later.

Dr Windrum, a consultant haematologist specialising in cancer care who works at Antrim Area Hospital near Belfast, told the trial that after the roads-open car flashed past, there was nothing in the road as he started to turn right.

He said his Nissan Juke was the distance of its bonnet into the road when he first noticed a white helmet approaching the crest of the road some 150m to his right.

explosion

He told the court: ’The first thing I saw was a helmet. It was a considerable distance from me at this stage. I thought I had sufficient time to complete my manoeuvre and get into the right hand lane.’

He described the impact as feeling like an explosion and thought he and his father, who was in the front passenger seat, were going to die.