Blackburn family devastated after car ploughs into side of house narrowly missing 2-year-old child

Faye and Phil Dewell were in their home on Old Gates Drive in Cherry Tree on Thursday night, when a car ploughed through the front end of their house causing debris to fly everywhere, destroying the front room wall and almost hitting their young son.

Mrs Dewell, who has been left extremely upset by the incident said: "At roughly 8pm last night, a car randomly drove into the front of the house.

"Our little boy was stood millimetres from the car that came into the house and the wall that collapsed.

"Thankfully he is ok although suffered a head injury and is still in shock, he hasn’t cried or really spoken yet.

"Our other two were in bed and safe at the back of the house."

Mrs Dewell said the car caused huge amounts of structural damage to the house and as of Friday morning were waiting to be guided by their insurance companies to see how they can move forward.

Luckily, the family had relatives living close-by and were able to stay with them for the evening.

Mrs Dewell added: "We have only just finished renovating our family home that we have ploughed every spare penny into it over the last 18 months.

"We are beyond devastated and upset.

"We still don’t understand what happened, the guy has hit our house at huge force, we don’t know why he was driving down the street in the first place and there is a lot we need to understand."

A spokesperson for the police said they were called at around 8.10pm to the house on Old Gates Drive in the Cherry Tree area of Blackburn to attend to a car that had collided with a house.

The spokesperson said: "A blue Ford KA has collided with the front of a house.

"The driver, a man in his 40s has been reported for driving without due care and attention and was taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital with minor injuries.

"We believe someone from the council attended the property on Thursday night and will be investigating from here."

The fire service also attended and used specialist equipment to remove the car from the front of the house.

A spokesperson from the fire service said: "We attended the incident and made the scene safe, using a tirfor to winch the car away from the house ready for the police and building engineers to look at.

"No injuries were reported and we were at the scene for less than an hour."

Mrs Dewell said speeding on Old Gates Drive is a huge problem and would welcome the introduction of traffic calming measures.

She said: "If there is ever a reason for a street to need traffic calming measures, it is this.

"It could have ended very differently.

"This point is also where the developers are building on the weather pitch and plan to put a junction in."

"I just want to say thank you to all our neighbours and family who supported us, along with the emergency services and the men from the council.

"We have a long road ahead to getting our family home fixed again."