A lorry driver has been banned from the roads and is facing a jail sentence for killing a East Yorkshire cyclist at a roundabout.

Richard Walters, prosecuting, told York Crown Court that Mervyn John White, 64, pulled out of a motorway slip road onto the junction without stopping and hit Julian Barlow, 49.

“Mr Barlow, who was wearing a red top and cycling in a completely appropriate manner, was visible for some time,” said the barrister. “Mr Barlow had nowhere, literally, to go. He ended up unfortunately by going under the vehicle.”

The collision was filmed on a camera fixed to the cab of White’s lorry. Because White, a professional driver, didn’t stop and check that the road was clear, his actions were “not far short of dangerous,” said Mr Walters.

The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC said: “This is a desperately sad and serious matter. Custody is very much at the forefront of the court’s mind in this case.”

He adjourned sentence until September 15 and asked the Crown Prosecution Service to provide statements from Mr Barlow’s family about the effect of his death upon them. The cyclist was 49 and came from Goole.

Many of the deceased man’s relatives including his widow were in court to hear White, of Orion Way, Grimsby, plead guilty to causing Mr Barlow’s death by careless driving at the junction of the A19 and the M62 near Whiteley on July 27, 2014.

He was released on bail and given an interim driving ban. The length of the ban will be decided when he is sentenced.

He had been expected to stand trial this week after denying the charge at an earlier hearing in January.

His barrister Andrew Semple, said defence lawyers before he took over the case, had commissioned an expert’s report into the collision and when it was ready, a few days ago, it became clear that White should plead guilty.

The judge said because the plea had come so close to the trial date, White would lose most of the discount that defendants receive for pleading guilty.

Mr Walters said White was driving a Scania HGV lorry with a 2010 registration when he came off the M62 eastbound carriageway at Junction 34. He slowed his lorry but never got below 19 mph as he drove towards the roundabout where the slip road met the A19 Selby to Doncaster road. He did not stop and pulled straight onto the roundabout.

Mr Semple will give White’s mitigation at the sentencing hearing. He has no previous convictions.

York Crown Court heard that in a police interview, White claimed the sun had got in his eyes and also blamed the position of his mirrors, but that police experts had proved that the sun was not a factor in the collision, and that White had driven the same model of lorry for four or five years, so should have known its blind spots.