a scooter rider who died in an accident in St Martin’s on Thursday afternoon had been married for just four weeks, it emerged yesterday.

Mazvydas Duda, 23, and a local woman were married at the Forest Church on 11 July. The couple have an eight-month-old son.

Mr Duda died at the scene after his machine was in a collision involving three cars at the Grande Rue/Rue Maze filter-in-turn.

He worked for Marcwell Maintenance. His foreman, Dickie Baker, 44, was best man at his wedding.

Mr Baker said his friend had been going to collect a tin of paint for him from Valpy’s hardware store when the accident happened just after 1.30pm.

‘The woman who we were working for [about half a mile away] came back and said there’d been a bad accident,’ he said.

‘I had a horrible feeling it was him. We have had so many what-ifs, but you can’t really think like that.

‘I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat today when I had to pack his tools up.’

The men had worked together for just over two years. Mr Duda joined Marcwell as a plasterer after working on a Social Security scheme.

‘He took to it straight away and really flourished,’ said Mr Baker. ‘They say there’s one in a million and it was Maz. I trusted him implicitly. He had a few cares, like any youngster does, but he’d do a good turn for anybody. Everybody at work liked and respected him.’