SHOPPERS had a lucky escape when a car careered across the road and crashed through the front window of a furniture store in Accrington town centre.

The 79-year-old driver was trying to reverse the £20,000 blue Jaguar car, which he had bought as a Christmas present for his wife, into a parking space on the opposite side of the road when the accident happened.

She had asked him to park it up as she was unable to manoeuvre into the tight space and had stepped out of the car to allow her husband to get behind the wheel. But the vehicle lurched across the busy main road, hitting a silver Corsa before ploughing into the window of Davies of Accrington, causing around £14,000-worth of damage.

Virtually the whole of the brand-new automatic two-litre X-type V6 was left embedded among the dining suites with just the front wheels hanging over on to the pavement.

The driver, from Clitheroe, who was helped out of the car by a passing bus driver, was treated at the scene for shock, along with his wife, by paramedics. There were no serious injuries but a number of pedestrians were left shaken by their ordeal.

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