A trainee riding instructor who was found unconscious in a field with serious head injuries has been awarded £495,000 damages by a High Court.

Matilda Webb, a brilliant student who had dropped out of school after her father died of leukaemia, had planned a career with horses said her counsel Richard Lissack QC.

But her ambitions were dashed when she went to collect some horses from a field at Jevington Place Stables, Jevington, near Eastbourne, in October 1998.

Miss Webb, who was not wearing a helmet, went into a field that contained a number of mares and also a new horse which, as it turned out later, had never been kept with mares before.

Mr Lissack told Judge Peter Clark that Miss Webb, now 26, of Susans Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, suffered significant problems with speech, reading, writing, memory and concentration.

She also had epilepsy and tinnitus.

Mr Lissack said the claim was settled on the basis of 75 per cent liability on the part of Yvonne Knowelden-Garratt, trading as Jevington Place Stables.