Armoured truck smashes into home

A Dorset family had a lucky escape when a 28-tonne armoured truck smashed into their home.

The runaway Ranger vehicle was being taken off a low-loader when a malfunction caused it to roll backwards, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The vehicle, built to withstand bomb attacks, ploughed through a wire fence, down an embankment and across a public footpath.

It then careered through the garden fence of the Portland home of Clive and Sharon Nethercott, tore across 15ft of their back lawn and demolished their double garage.

Their two cars - Ford Freda mini-van and a Fiat Panda - a camper van, two boats and a motorbike were destroyed and the vehicle narrowly missed their house by just 18 inches.

The couple, who were in their kitchen at the time, feared their 12-year-old son Adam was buried under the rubble as there was no sign of him afterwards. They later found him playing outside.

Mr Nethercott, also father to Celia, 20, and James, 14, said: "We rushed out the front and there was a loud noise and everything was hazy as there was dust in the air.

"We didn't really know what had happened and I looked across at the double garage and the first thing I thought was that the roof had caved in.

"Then we saw this vehicle in the garden and my first thought was it was a plane because it sounded like a helicopter or a plane had crashed."

A spokesman for Weymouth-based Universal Engineering, which designed and built the Ranger, declined to comment as a police investigation had been launched.