THE FAMILY of a young father killed in a road accident has lost a treasured memory of their loved one after thieves stole his motorbike.

The father of Neil Carter says he feels ‘offended’ after the bike he gave to his son for his 18th birthday was taken from outside their home.

Chef Neil, from Charminster, was just 26 when he died in a crash near Shillingstone last month as he rode back from a successful job interview at the Forum School.

With the family already having to cope with their tragic loss, they have now suffered a further blow with the theft of the bike.

Neil’s dad Peter Carter said the bike was parked between his car and his neighbour’s outside their home in Cocklands, Charminster, when he went into Dorchester last Thursday at around 2pm and when he returned two hours later it was missing.

He said: “I came back home and noticed it straight away. My neighbours had also noticed it had gone but they hadn’t seen anything.”

Mr Carter added: “I was disappointed and offended rather than angry.”

The stolen bike was a blue Honda C90 that Neil had owned for eight years.

On the day of his tragic crash he was riding another bike, a Suzuki.

Mr Carter said the bike had been parked outside the house for some time and on the day it was stolen he had thought about moving it.

He said: “It had been there even before his accident.

“He used to go to work on it or go to visit his son and it had been parked out there for some time.

“We bought it for him for his eighteenth birthday.

“I had actually thought that morning that it was about time we took it in and took it officially off the road.”

Mr Carter said his wife Jacqui had been handing out posters asking for information and Felicity Brant, Neil’s ex-partner and mother of his five-year-old son Dylan, had issued an appeal on the social networking site Facebook.

He said Mrs Carter was ‘particularly upset’ by the theft.

“It was the bike he first learnt to ride motorcycles on,” he said.

“He had often said to his mother ‘why don’t you learn to ride it’ and she had been intending to at times. Apart from being annoyed she was upset by it.”

Inspector Les Fry of Dorchester Police said police were appealing for witnesses to the theft of the bike, licence plate number HJ02 NFF.

He urged anyone with information to call 01305 222222.