A man escaped injury when a car ploughed through the front wall of his house into his living room.

He had been in the back room of the house when the car, driven by an elderly woman, careered off the road through his front garden.

The driver also escaped serious injury.

Firefighters from Eastbourne were called to Michel Dene Road in East Dean after the woman, driving a Mazda automatic, went through a hedge along a 15-metre pathway and through the wall of a house.

The accident took place yesterday at 3pm.

Sub Officer Kevin Sharpe, of Eastbourne fire station, said: "The lady was driving down the road opposite the house and when she came to stop at the junction she must have hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

"She ended up 3ft inside the house.

"She was taken to hospital but only as a precautionary measure. The gentleman in the house was luckily in a back room at the time.

"His wife had gone out but had been doing the ironing in the front room an hour before. If she had still been there she could have been seriously hurt."