A car smashed through the living room of a house in the Black Country today, knocking out the gas fire and sparking an alert.

Six homes in St Peters Road, Netherton, had to be evacuated following the crash at 3am.

A man in his 40s was in the lounge when the BMW left the road leaving a gaping hole in his home. His mother was also in the house at the time.

The driver of the car fled the scene before fire crews, police and paramedics arrived.

Firefighters from Cradley station isolated the gas supply to the house but neighbouring terraced properties were evacuated until engineers could make the area safe. They were allowed back after 45 minutes.

Watch commander Dave Lawrence, from white watch at Cradley, said: “The house is on a slight bend but there was a lot of grass between the road and the house so the car was obviously travelling at quite a speed to end up where it did.”

Father-of-one Nigel Astley, aged 43, was asleep in his front room.

He said: “I’d fallen asleep around 1.30am and was woken up by a big bang. I jumped out of my chair I didn’t know what had happened then I realised there was a massive hole in my house.”