TRIBUTES have been paid to a “very modest, very kind” motocross rider killed after coming off his bike and being struck by another rider.

Tom Smith, 32, died at the Mepal Motopark at Block Fen near Chatteris last week despite the best efforts of ambulance and emergency crews to save him.

His wife Claire Smith, speaking from her home in Gossops Green Crawley, paid tribute to her husband.

“He took on me and my three children,” she said. “He was brilliant. We only got married a year and a half ago. Tom was very quiet until you got to know him.

“But he was also very, very kind. He was very modest.

“He was always outside. He would be on his bike, mountain-biking, on his tractor.

“My daughters ride horses and he was so interested in that. He took a real interest in their equestrian pursuits.

“If he was indoors he would be in front of the fire with a beer and scampi.

“He was such an experienced motocross rider and he had been doing it since he was a kid.”

Mrs Smith, the mother of Jade, 17, Caleb, 15, and Mia, 12, said: “We think he died at the scene and did not suffer.”

Jade added: “He was like a big kid. We would have family bundles and tickle each other.”

Mr Smith also leaves his parents, Albert and Margaret, and siblings Richard, Rob, Michael, Sarah and Marie.

Michael, 35, said: “Everyone had such high regard for him.

“He was very, very kind and would do anything for anybody. He worked his pinkies to the bone for my dad when he moved house recently.

“He loved anything motorbike-related.”

Fenland District Council is conducting a joint investigation with Cambridgeshire Constabulary into the accident.