AN IMPORTED car component which corroded after just five years led to the death of a Blaenau Ffestiniog pensioner, an inquest was told.

Gwen Parry, 73, died when the car being driven by her daughter collided with an oncoming car on the A470 near the Maenan Abbey Hotel in the Conwy Valley on 6 November last year.

But at the end of the inquest in Ruthin, John Gittins, the coroner for North Wales East and Central, said that while Helen Humphreys must have blamed herself for her mother’s death the evidence about the mech­anical failure totally vindicated her.

Mrs Humphreys was driving Mrs Parry’s Vauxhall Astra from Llanrwst towards Glan Conwy and was negotiating a slight left-hand curve at 35-40mph when the car slid into the opposite carriageway.

She told police later that she had touched the brakes only gently.

“I kept turning the wheel, but it just kept sliding. It was like being on ice,” she said.

The Astra collided with an oncoming car driven by Malcolm Silgrim, who was seriously injured in the collision.

He told police: “I just felt like a crash-test dummy. The noise was horrendous.”

Mrs Parry, of Cwm Teigl, Blaenau Ffestiniog, was taken to Ysbyty Gwynedd but died later that day.

Pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers gave the cause of death as major abdominal and chest trauma as she had suffered severe damage to her liver.

Police vehicle examiner Gary Roberts told the inquest that the offside track control arm of the Astra, linking the suspension to the wheel, was the original one fitted 10 years ago and was in good condition.

However, the nearside arm fitted only five years ago was so badly corroded it had snapped, causing Mrs Humphreys to lose control.