AN ELDERLY woman was left badly shaken and with a minor head injury after her car shot across a road and crashed into a neighbour's home.

The driver of the vehicle was trying to park the car when it smashed through the garden wall of a home in Queen Street, Bishop Auckland, and hit the front of the house yesterday morning.

The owners were not inside at the time, but returned shortly after the accident. No one was seriously hurt.

Neighbour Arlene Watson said: "I just heard a terrible noise. The lady who was driving the car was shaken up and has a nasty cut on her head.

"At least there was nobody else in the way, and luckily she was not badly hurt.

"She has been driving all her life. She is in her late seventies, but this is the first accident she has ever had."

A police spokesman said: "The wall and the front window of the house were damaged, as well as the car."