A FREAK accident left a trail of destruction across the front of a York house - and the wreckage of a car embedded in the wall.

Malcolm Bexton, 69, was enjoying a coffee in his front room yesterday when he heard a massive bang - which sounded like a bomb going off, he said.

All he could hear was a din of breaking timber and crashing masonry as he ran outside to find a heap of rubble where his garden wall and fence used to be in Grasmere Grove, off Eastholme Drive, Rawcliffe.

An elderly couple in a Honda HR-V were trapped in the vehicle - which had become entangled in the wreckage of the 6ft-tall back garden fence.

Breeze blocks from the 3ft-high garden wall were flung about the driveway and the vehicle, a baby SUV, had become wedged under the back corner of Mr Bexton’s bungalow.

Quick-thinking neighbour Dave Beavers, 64, an estate agent and property developer, tore down the remains of the fence and pulled the wreckage off the bonnet so he could free the couple from the car.

Mr Bexton was stunned to see that his 30-year-old daughter Karen’s newly serviced and MOT-ed Renault Cleo Mark 2 had also been wrecked.

The retired National Railway Museum worker said it was lucky he was safe inside when the accident happened shortly after 1pm.

He said: “I was sitting in my front room having a coffee. Then I heard this massive bang. It was like a hotel being blown up.

“All you could hear was bricks and wood being crushed.

“You might expect something like this to happen on a motorway. But not in a village in your own back garden.”

The Honda had squeezed through a six-foot gap in the driveway between the gate post and a parked car belonging to his daughter’s friend.

The friend’s car was not touched, but his daughter’s Cleo was written off only a couple of hours after it was given a service and MOT.

He said the elderly man inside the car told him he had been taking his wife for a hospital check up when the accident happened.

He added: “They were shaken up, but not hurt. They were very lucky. What happened was incredible. He said the car was an automatic and he could not stop it.”

The pensioner has been told he cannot have the car removed from his house in case the corner of the building collapses and must wait for structural engineers to check the damage.

He said: “The insurers offered me a night in the hotel, but I can’t leave it like this. That corner of the house has moved two inches and the bedroom window has popped out.”

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said they were investigating a report of an accident involving a Honda HR-V driven by one of Mr Bexton’s neighbours, a man aged in his 80s.

“The vehicle is wedged into the corner of the house and is also reported to have taken out a fence and wall,” the spokesman added.

“The elderly man was reported to be out of his vehicle and back in his house.”