WAREHOUSEMAN Chris Baggott returned from work to find a car embedded in his conservatory.

A Proton had gone out of control and crashed through the back garden fence of his house in Brackenbeds Close, Pelton.

Mr Baggott said: "The conservatory is wiped out. It is a bit of a mess and a big shock for us. The conservatory has only been up for three months. Where our dining room furniture was is this car," he added.

He and his wife Moira, a nurse, have a five-year-old daughter Kaitie. "There were three little ones playing in there on Saturday exactly where the car went in. Apparently the driver lost it on the corner, came through the fence and into the conservatory.''

Mr Baggott said there had been a similar accident a year or so ago when a car crashed into a bungalow opposite. Since then he has been pressing for the installation of speed humps to stop speeding drivers.

"It's not every day you find a car in your conservatory. We'll have to get a structural engineer to look at the conservatory before we can pull the car out.''

A Durham Police spokesman said: "It was a Proton car driven by a man from Chester-le-Street who told us he swerved to avoid another vehicle, lost control and went through the back fence and into the conservatory. An ambulance attended but he declined medical treatment."