A SOLDIER who admitted causing death by careless driving after crashing off the A34 has been given a 12-month community order.

Fijian Netani Kepa, 28, was driving on the A34 near Abingdon on September 9 last year when his 4X4 came off the road, killing his passenger, dad-of-one Major Christian Wheddon, 43.

Oxford Crown Court heard that the car overtook another vehicle before moving into the inside lane and a disused slip road, before crashing.

Judge Mary Jane Mowat said Major Wheddon was a dedicated officer.

The officer from Bermuda had been in the UK to help with security at the 2012 London Olympics and was training at the defence academy in Shrivenham at the time of the crash.

He was aide-de-camp to Bermuda’s governor from 2008 until 2011.

Sentencing Kepa, Judge Mowat said: “No one will ever be sure why this tragic incident occurred.

“There are two theories: one that you feel asleep at the wheel and two that you mistook the disused slip road along the carriageway for an inside lane. I am inclined to favour the second but I repeat it is not possible to say for sure.”

Kepa, of Lucknow Barracks in Hampshire, has left the Army due to a medical condition.

He has to complete 300 hours of community work, pay £500 costs and was banned from driving for a year.