A 19-year-old has been cleared of murdering Tilehurst motorcyclist Sheldon Lewcock by running a van into him.

At Reading Crown Court, jurors found Ryan Willicombe guilty of manslaughter by a majority.

This follows a month-long trial, which heard that Willicombe ran a van into 19-year-old Sheldon Lewcock - who died of his injuries at hospital five days later.

Willicombe, who appeared in court wearing a suit, was expressionless as the verdict was read out.

There was a commotion outside the courtroom - though friends and family of the defendant and victim received the verdict in silence from the public gallery.

The collision which killed Mr Lewcock occurred on August 4, 2022, at Pierces Hill in Tilehurst.

The defendant drove a van owned by his father into a group of motorcyclists.

Throughout his trial, Willicombe maintained that he had not intended to crash into the victim, who had been riding with the group - and had only intended to 'scare' the other youths.

Willicombe claims that, in the run-up to the collision, he and his family had been harassed by a group of motorcyclists.

After the verdict was read out, Judge Heather Norton lauded jurors for their work throughout the trial.

She described Willicombe's as "an unusual and not easy case to decide."

The judge said: "They [murder trials] put a huge responsibility on anybody who has to play a part in how something happened, why something happened, and who bears a responsibility for what has happened.

"You were the 12 who were selected at random to bear that heavy responsibility, and take on that heavy task."

Willicombe will be sentenced for manslaughter at a later date.