A former heavyweight boxer and sparring partner to Dereck Chisora from Stonebridge was killed when his scooter broke down in the middle of a three lane carriageway, an inquest heard.

Joe Kaczorowski, 40, of Crawford Street, was left helpless as a car smashed into him from behind on the North Circular Road in Brent Cross.

North London Coroner’s Court heard the father-of-three flew onto the bonnet of a Saab 95 and smashed the windscreen before he was flung through the air.

The impact on his Peugeot Citystar scooter was so strong that his tyres popped and its wheel rims gouged out chunks of the road, the court was told.

Mr Kaczorowski, who was 6ft 3in, died after suffering serious injuries to his head and spinal cord.

He had been experiencing difficulties with his bike as he travelled west past the Staple’s Corner flyover on December 19 last year.

A car was forced to pull in front of another vehicle in the slow lane to avoid a collision with the moped when its throttle cable failed.

But the manoeuvre caused motorist John Bone, 46, to change lane and collide with the bike at up to 55mph, the court heard.

Mr Bone said: “I was going along with the flow of the traffic, at that time of night I would be surprised if that was going over 40mph.”

Police collisions expert Adrian Armstrong said the bike’s rusted throttle cable had been ‘failing for some time’, and said the mechanical failure was ‘directly responsible for the collision’.

He added that the throttle cable would not have resulted in an MOT fail and could have been overlooked during services.

Senior Coroner Andrew Walker recorded the cause of death as a motor vehicle collision.