A MUM from Staplegrove was killed renovating a dream buy-to-let property with her husband when a 6ft garden wall collapsed on top of her, an inquest has heard.

Jayne Chaffey, 59, died while working in the garden of the house bought to makeover just like TV's Homes under the Hammer.

The inquest was told Mrs Chaffey had been "joyfully weeding and decluttering" plants from the garden of the hillside village house bought at auction.

The couple had snapped up the terraced house as a renovation project a month earlier after husband Andrew retired from the police.

The mum-of-two was moments from finishing for the day when she declared she had "earned a glass of Prosecco" - but tragedy struck when the breeze block wall came crashing down.

Former Avon and Somerset Police firearms sergeant Mr Chaffey told how the pair chose the house as a property investment for their retirement.

He said: "We liked the property and on coming away we knew there were a few minor maintenance issues but the main thing to fix was the rear garden.

"We decided the best course of action was driving up with our friend to tackle the garden."

The couple and a friend drove 90 miles from their home in Staplegrove to the house in the Welsh valleys village of Mountain Ash.

An inquest heard former Taunton register office registrar Mrs Chaffey had filled six bags of brambles from the overgrown garden last October.

But moments later the garden wall suddenly collapsed on top of her.

Mr Chaffey said he had been trying to secure a wooden fence next to the wall after noticing it was leaning into the garden.

He pushed the fence with a metal pole but suddenly heard a big bang behind him and heard the friend shout "Jayne."

Mr Chaffey said: "The soil we were on started to give way and we started to fall.

"I saw Jayne was sat up. She looked like she had passed out."

The inquest heard Mr Chaffey saw his wife's head roll to one side as he felt blood on her clothes.

He desperately performed CPR on her until emergency services arrived.

He added: "Nothing will ever describe the devastation that Jayne's death has caused me and my family."

The inquest in Pontypridd, South Wales, heard Mrs Chaffey was rushed 18 miles to University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

But she died from her injuries in the early hours of the following morning surrounded by her family.

Post mortem tests found Mrs Chaffey died from severe hypoxic brain injury due to a cardiac arrest from a spinal injury.

Coroner Andrew Barkley recorded a conclusion of death caused by an accident.

He said: "Mrs Chaffey suffered catastrophic and unsurvivable and devastating injuries both to her brain and to her spine.

"She was almost immediately rendered deeply unconscious."

Mr Barkley added it was unclear how the wall collapsed. Police found there were no suspicious circumstances.

PHOTOS: Wales News Service.