A LEARNER driver from Heathfield, swerved to avoid a baby deer on a Dartmoor road in a crash which killed his mother.

An inquest heard that 44-year-old Natasha Botfield suffered fatal head and neck injuries when her 20-year-old son Lewis lost control of the family’s high powered Mitsubishi Evolution rally car.

Care team leader Natasha was the back seat passenger and may have loosened her seatbelt to pick up a mobile phone that had dropped into her footwell as the collision happened.

Lewis was an uninsured learner driver with only a provisional licence but his father Gary, who had been the front seat passenger, told police he had been driving.

The father, 45, and son, now 22, were both later jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice for lying about who was driving.

The pair only told the truth two months after Natasha’s death when a DNA test found Lewis’ saliva on the driver’s airbag.

They had been to the Tavistock Inn at Poundsgate on Dartmoor on a wet night in March 2019 when the crash happened as they headed back to their home in Drum Way, Heathfield, Devon.

The Plymouth inquest heard that a baby deer ran out in front of the vehicle and Lewis swerved to avoid it, but mounted a nearside bank and the car became airborne before smashing into a bank on the opposite side of the country road.

MPC Tori Goodman said wildlife is an issue on country roads but said: ‘We could not prove if his account was true or not.’

The coroner was told Natasha’s head struck the main pillar at the centre of the car as she bent down to pick up a mobile phone that had fallen into the footwell.

Natasha was described as a ’social butterfly’ who was a ’magnet’ who drew people towards her and would do anything for anyone.

The crash happened at Spitchwick Common near Ashburton, Devon.

The assistant coroner for Plymouth and South Devon, Stephen Covell, recorded a conclusion of road traffic collision death.