A mother drove for a “significant period of time” on the wrong side of the road and crashed head-on into another vehicle, killing her 11-year-old son, because a “spider was in the car”, an inquest has heard.

Cloud Younger, of the Tregaron area, told police that a “spider had fallen into my left hand”, distressing her eight-year-old daughter Branwen, immediately before the fatal crash which killed 11-year-old Tristan Keith Silver in May last year, the inquest at Aberystwyth heard today.

Mrs Younger was driving Tristan to school at Ysgol y Dderi in Llangybi before attending a doctor’s appointment with Branwen on the morning of Friday, 4 May, 2018.

Meanwhile, farmer David Glyndwr Jones had just loaded up 60 lambs into his trailer which he attached to his Mitsubishi Shogun and set off with his wife to go to market in Builth Wells.

Just before 8.45am on the A485 near Olmarch between Llangybi and Tregaron, Mr Jones noticed that a blue Subaru Legacy estate car ahead had veered into the wrong lane.

“I saw the car go over the line and then it carried on straight up the hill towards us,” he told the inquest.

“It was not slowing down.”

“I turned to my wife and said ’she is not going to stop’.”

Mr Jones “slammed on the brakes”, pulled the car into the verge on the left hand side of the lane and “braced for impact”.

“I was devastated with what happened,” Mr Jones said.

“I have no idea why the woman didn’t slow down or go back into her lane, she had plenty of time to do it.”

While the impact left Mr Jones and his wife, along with Mrs Younger and her daughter, with minor injuries – Tristan suffered “serious and grievous” injuries.

He was airlifted to hospital in Cardiff where he was pronounced dead.

The inquest heard that, following the crash, Mrs Younger gave a ’no comment’ interview to police when asked the specifics of what happened.

A brief prepared statement to police later said that a “spider landed on my left hand,” which was “scaring” her daughter and that she was “trying to calm the situation” immediately before the crash.

The Crown Prosecution Service has said that no charges will be brought in relation to the incident, the inquest heard.

Mrs Younger did not give evidence at the inquest.

A forensic report into the crash found that all the people involved were wearing seatbelts, that road conditions were good at the time of the crash, and that neither car involved had any pre-existing defects.

The speed of Mrs Younger’s car at the time of the crash cannot be ascertained, the inquest also heard.

PC Matthew Fraser, police forensic investigator, told the inquest Mrs Younger had no drugs or alcohol in her systems and added that the “acts of the driver are responsible for the collision”.

Recording a verdict of death by misadventure, Ceredigion coroner Peter Brunton said: “There will be cases where the finger points in one particular direction, and I’m afraid that this is one of those cases.

“I’m sure many motorists have had experience of a bee or a wasp entering the cabin and don’t lose control because of that.

“Mrs Younger was given the chance to explain what happened [to police] but did not.

“Had she not been distracted and been concentrating on the road, she would have had time to do something about the situation in the seconds that were wasted before the catastrophic incident.

“She travelled for a significant period of time on the wrong side of the road and did not do anything to get back across.”

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