A stockbroker has been fired after tweeting a bad taste ‘joke’ that he hit a cyclist but drove off because he was late for work. Rayhan Qadar claimed the tweet was simply a “bad taste joke” but it’s not so funny anymore – especially since he has since been fired with police investigating the claim. Within hours of tweeting “Think I just hit a cyclist. But I'm late for work so had to drive off lol”, Rayhan was fired from his job at Hargreaves Landsdown, an investment firm in Bristol.

This @RayQ18 guy seems smart pic.twitter.com/zP5g0Bj8PN — Jules Mattsson (@julesmattsson) January 6, 2015

The tweet, which was shared and retweeted hundreds of times, brought a wave of online criticism, with his employers deeming his actions “totally unacceptable”. A spokesman for Hargreaves Lansdown said Qadar’s comments had failed to meet the standards expected from staff: “One of our employees has failed to conduct themselves to the standards we expect of our staff. "We find these online comments totally unacceptable. Upon becoming aware of this issue we have terminated this person's employment with immediate effect." Following his dismissal, the stockbroker tweeted that he had been joking: “My previous tweet about the cyclist was obviously not true. I did not hit cyclist. Not today. Not ever. A bad joke on my part it seems.” Qadar’s Twitter account has now been made private as he talks to his local police station about the claims.