A stolen sports car demolished a garden wall and flattened part of a 7ft high brick outhouse during a high speed smash in Wolverhampton.

The six-year-old Audi TT also ripped a metal clothes line from its concrete base before finally coming to a halt inches from a flat with a housebound pensioner inside.

Bricks and other debris were sent flying into the air after the driver lost control at a junction and left a trail of destruction across the footpath and into the garden of the house that is split into flats in Wallace Road, Bradley, around 8.20pm last night. Two people fled from the wrecked Audi that police say had been reported stolen from Coseley.

Amanda Sumner, a 42-year-old Sue Ryder carer who was looking after a patient in a nearby house and was first on the scene, said: “There was an almighty bang and I saw the car embedded in the remains of the outhouse with smoke pouring out of it and two men running away.

“The engine of the car was still running but the vehicle was empty.”

Police investigations are under way to find the culprits.