THE mother of a woman killed by another driver as she drove home from a family Christmas said "mere words can never express the horror and sorrow" she feels.

Natasha Bland, of Basingstoke, was driving back from a "joyous Christmas" spent with family in Cornwall just after 8pm on December 27, 2016, when a Landrover Freelander drifted into her lane and crashed into her car on the A303 near Stonehenge.

Despite assistance from other motorists and emergency services, she died of traumatic head and leg injuries half an hour later while trapped in her Toyota IQ.

During the sentencing of her killer last week, Natasha's mother, Sarah, said "the intensity of grief continues to be overwhelming".

"The numbness that comes with shock, even through the mask of sleeping pills, antidepressants and panic attack medication, wearing off to reveal the true horror that Natasha was brutally, cruelly taken away.

"My heart aches as if slowly, painfully the life is squeezed out of it. It's debilitating."

Collision analysis reports from police and the prosecution service suggested the most likely cause of the crash was that the Landrover, driven by Eloise Frith Thomson, had mounted a grass verge, before she lost control of the car.

Thomson, of St Albans, originally denied causing death by careless driving, entering a not-guilty plea in November 2017, almost a year after the crash.

A trial was set to begin this month, but after seeing the analysis reports, Thomson changed her plea to guilty, admitting she must have had "an inadvertent lapse of concentration".

On Friday, Judge Susan Evans QC sentenced Thomson to 130 hours of unpaid work, and banned her from driving for two years.

She said Ms Bland was "a vibrant, energetic, good-natured, much-loved young woman" killed as a result of "[Thomson's] careless driving".

Prosecuting, Nicola Talbot Hadley said Thomson drifted onto the verge and would have needed to "oversteer" to get her car back onto the road, and that this caused her to cross into Ms Bland's lane.

And she said there would have been "practically no time at all for Ms Bland to react to the oncoming vehicle".

The impact of the crash pushed Ms Bland's engine and gearbox backwards into the body of the car.

The court heard that Thomson, who had been travelling to Somerset with her boyfriend and two children to celebrate Christmas with her parents, was well-rested and alert at the time of the crash.

She initially told police she believed her car had blown a tire, which had caused her to drift into oncoming traffic, but this was found not to be the case.

Defending, Nicholas Maggs said Thomson's car would only have had to veer 10 to 20cm to the left to drive onto the verge, but why she drifted was "an answer we just can't give".

He said Thomson, who broke her back and pelvis in the crash, "until recently, genuinely thought that she had not done something wrong".

But he said causing Ms Bland's death was "something that lives with [Thomson] every moment, and it always will".

A statement by Ms Bland's mother read in court said: "Everything I did with Natasha was unequivocally fun and always hilarious.

"She brought happiness and energy with her always, in bucket loads.

"It's impossible not to miss such a beautiful girl."

And her father Stephen added: "My overwhelming focus is on the bright future and opportunities that have been stolen from Natasha.

"It has destroyed my happiness and peace of mind."