A YOUNG woman who touched the lives of many people is how a mother has described her daughter who was killed in a car crash a week after celebrating her 19th birthday.

Sarah Boatwright, of George Street, Hunton, near Maidstone, died on December 17 after apparently losing control of her car on a sheet of ice in Redwall Lane, Linton.

More than 250 people gathered at Vinters Park Crematorium in Maidstone for her funeral and later at St Mary's Church in Hunton for a memorial service.

Personal tributes were led by her father Kevin and boyfriend Lee Trowell whom she met four years ago at the local Venture Scout group.

Both spoke of a happy, vivacious young woman with a passion for getting the most out of life, who loved horse riding, Scouting and travel.

She was adored by her 15-year-old brother Michael and 17-year-old sister Cassim and members of Mr Trowell's family, who considered her an adopted daughter.

Other mourners sharing their thoughts of Sarah included a woman who was served by the former Invicta Grammar School pupil on the checkout at the Tesco supermarket in Tovil on the night she died. They had never met before.

Her mother Jenny said: "The woman spoke how Sarah had packed her bags that night and how upset she had been to learn she had died. It was typical of Sarah. She touched and brightened the lives of so many people."

Many of her former grammar school classmates were there, as well as friends from Mid Kent College, where she was hoping to improve her A-level grades in exams this summer.

Her grades at her former school were not high enough to win a place at her first choice Oxford Brookes University, so she had decided to try again, cramming three subjects into a single year of study.

Success would have allowed her take up an alternative course in Psychology and Early Childhood Studies in the Autumn.