Correct me if I am wrong here but is this not how you learned to fly the early microlights? Before registration and licensing became mandatory you just had to get some ground based advice and off you went.
There is traffic about this incident on most aviation related websites and predictable tut, tutting about the idiocy of the pilot but he was only doing what most microlight pilots did 30 years ago. Difference now is that you have to have a licence and the microlight has to be "registered."
As aviators we look poorly on people who don't abide by the rules and as Brits, we never question the vailidity, requirement or onerous nature of the rules - we just accept whatever they are.
If we take away the fact that microlights are now in the licenced category and so legally he was in the wrong - what we don't know is if his "experienced" friend checked over the aircraft and also gave the deceased the same sort of training that any microlight pilot might have had 30 or so years ago....
Bottom line is that the deceased stuck two fingers up at the CAA and then paid the ultimate price but I am sure that there are others doing the same.