A motorcyclist was estimated to be doing 138mph when a fellow biker was almost killed in a crash near King's Lynn.

Dale Dent, 40, was on a 1000cc Kawasaki on the A134 Lynn Road near Shouldham when the crash happened at the junction with Watlington Road.

Dent was not involved in the crash but police suspected he was travelling at a “very high speed” and used CCTV cameras to help calculate his speed on the 50mph stretch of road.

He appeared before King’s Lynn Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, August 11, to plead guilty to dangerous driving on September 26 last year.

In light of the plea, the prosecution withdrew separate charges of driving without due care and attention and speeding.

The defendant, of Ranworth, Fairstead Estate, King's Lynn, was banned from driving for two years and fined £1,000.

Prosecutor Abdul Khan said Dent was riding immediately behind his friend and ahead of two others in the group.

Mr Khan said: “All rode in excess of the speed limit.

“Officers managed to accurately calculate the speed of the two motorcycles using CCTV and a particular system they adopt.

“It was 138mph in a 50mph speed limit – more than two-and-a-half times the limit. That gives rise to the dangerous driving to which this defendant has now pleaded guilty.

“The friend in front of him was in a near-fatal accident.”

Solicitor Tiffany Meredith, mitigating, told the bench there were no other factors of her client’s riding to consider – effectively it was a speeding matter, she said.

“Mr Dent has struggled to speak to me about the events today. In my view, he is suffering from post-traumatic stress," she said. “His friend is still in a rehabilitation hospital and the events of what happened he is reliving almost every day.”

She added: “He fully accepts that he was going that speed. It was a bike new to him and he did not take on board the power it had and how easy it was on such a vehicle to reach that speed.”

Miss Meredith said the father-of-one had struggled with sleep since that day last year.

“He’s described it to me as the worst experience of his life,” she added.

Her client, she said, was “not a young lad going crazy at excess speeds” but someone who cherished riding bikes but he had since sold the Kawasaki.

Dent was also ordered to pay £145 costs, a £100 victim surcharge and ordered to take an extended retest after the ban.