A man who died in a crash in May was remembered for his calm demeanour and as the glue that held his family together.

Chantelle Thomas said her 30-year-old son, Laquan, was working three jobs, including at Bermuda Commercial Bank and as a cruise ship security guard, and was engaged to a woman studying medicine in the UK, when he died following a collision involving a motorcycle and livery cycle along Malabar Road in Sandys on May 19.

She spoke after Evan Weiner, a US visitor to the island, was given a suspended prison sentence after he admitted in the Supreme Court to causing Mr Thomas’s death by careless driving.

Mr Thomas was the eighth person to die on Bermuda’s roads this year.

Ms Thomas reflected: “He was just a loving and giving person — he had eight official siblings, but Laquan was the glue that held everyone together.”

She recalled how Mr Thomas played for several football teams, including Devonshire Cougars, North Village and the Vasco da Gama Club, and was named the First Division young player of the year by the Bermuda Football Association in 2015.

Ms Thomas added: “He was a loving kid. He was reliable, dependable and the go-to person when they needed a house-sitter or anything done.

“He was an impactful person, he lived his purpose because everybody just took to him.”

Some of Mr Thomas’s former colleagues at BCB, where he worked in network support, said: “Beyond his technical abilities, he left behind a legacy of kindness and quiet strength that will not be forgotten.

“He carried himself with a clam, quiet professionalism, qualities that are rare to find in someone so young.”

Derek DeChabert, vice-president of Devonshire Recreation Club, said Mr Thomas was “a very likeable individual who always shared love to everyone, regardless of what he had going on in his personal life”.

Mr DeChabert said Mr Thomas lived on at Devonshire Recreation Club through his brother, Jecoa Thomas, who still plays for the Cougars and “carries his legacy at every match”.

Weiner, from New Jersey, was initially charged with causing Mr Thomas’s death by driving while impaired by alcohol, which he denied, but the charge was later changed to death by careless driving.

Prosecutor Adley Duncan said the original charge was laid based on the “preliminary traffic collision report”, the only one available to prosecutors when Weiner first appeared before the courts in May.

Mr Duncan explained: “As the matter progressed, we received the final report. Based on that report the substituted charge [death by careless driving] appeared to me to be more appropriate. The court agreed.”

The Royal Gazette was not in court when Puisne Judge Alan Richards sentenced Weiner to two years in prison, suspended for the same period, and a $5,000 fine on October 15, but received information about the case from prosecutors.

Mr Duncan said two years in prison was “in line with judicial precedent in Bermuda” for causing death cases and that Mr Justice Richards suspended Weiner’s sentence based on principles established in the criminal case of Garth Bell.

He added that the $5,000 fine was two-thirds of the maximum of $7,500 that the court could have imposed in the case.

Mr Duncan explained: “The Crown hoped for a sentence in line with judicial precedent that met the justice of the case. This sentence was within the ambit of our expectations.”

The Royal Gazette also reached out to Jerome Lynch KC, Weiner’s lawyer, but did not receive a response by press time.

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