A FATHER has been killed in a motorcycle crash in Thailand while trying to escape from suspected robbers.
David Sykes, 50, died in a head-on collision with an Isuzu pick-up truck in the Pattaya area of the country on Wednesday last week.
Witnesses say the oil worker, who was riding a Honda motorbike, was being chased by between two and four other motorcyclists at the time.
His father Archie, 81, a former mace carrier at Sunderland City Council, from Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, said: "There were four of them chasing him. He only went to the market to get some things and on the way back they started chasing him, trying to knock him off his bike. That's what we were told."
Mr Sykes, a former commando, moved to Thailand from the North East eight years ago, where he lived with wife Leki and one-year-old son Jacky.
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