A huntsman found dead in his car near Langport six months ago died accidentally, an inquest has ruled.

James Palmer, aged 38, had battled with drug addiction for many years, but East Somerset Coroner Tony Williams said he believed he had not intended to take his own life.

Mr Palmer lived near Drayton and rode with the Seavington and Taunton Vale hunts.

A dog walker chanced upon his red and orange Mini, parked on Westover Bridge at Muchelney, early in the morning on 15 April. His body was found inside, along with a syringe and other drugs paraphernalia.

At an inquest in Wells Town Hall last week, coroner's official Ben Batley said a pathologist found the cause of death was opiate poisoning.

His mother Marion Willey described the problems that began when her son was still very young. The youngest of her three children, he had struggled with a personality disorder that resulted in difficulties at school.

"We did not know how to help him," said Mrs Willey. "With specialists, he presented as if everything was fine and I was just being a worrying and overprotective mother."

Her son became quite obsessively immersed in falconry and showed exceptional talent, training at the Welsh Hawking Centre and putting on displays at agricultural shows. He loved the countryside, and was a keen horseman and dog handler.

Friends from the hunt loaned him money to help him buy his own smallholding, but he had two accidents which contributed to his difficulties: he suffered a bad fall while riding, and was then involved in a road accident when joyriders shunted his car, injuring his back.

He later qualified as a tree surgeon, and more recently was employed as a furniture restorer at McKay Upholsterers in Long Sutton.

Mrs Willey told how her son could get depressed, as chronicled in his diaries, and eventually had problems with drugs and alcohol.

It was at a rehabilitation centre in Devon that he met his girlfriend, Sofia, and they had hoped to marry. Both of them tried hard to keep away from alcohol and drugs, and spent two months living with Mrs Willey and her husband Brian at their home in Dyers Road, Curry Rivel.

"We all had an alcohol-free Christmas together, and then they moved into their own cottage," she said.

But the old problems returned, and by March Mr Palmer was back in Curry Rivel, while Sofia stayed on at the cottage near Drayton with their dog.

Mrs Willey said she had bumped into her son in the supermarket two days before he died, and he assured her that things were fine, and he had a few days of gardening work lined up.

The following day, Sofia contacted Mrs Willey saying she was concerned that Mr Palmer had started taking heroin. Next day, police visited Mrs Willey to tell her that her son's body had been found at Westover Bridge.

More than 300 people attended his funeral at Drayton the following week. "He seemed to touch so many people's lives, but he could not cope with his own," his mother said.

Mr Williams recorded a verdict of accident.