A cab driver ploughed into three parked cars after allegedly falling asleep at the wheel.

Grandparents Jean, 64, and Robert Crossby, 71, were woken up by a loud thud in the early hours of Sunday morning after a taxi careered into their drive and crashed into their Volkswagen Touareg, in Middleton Road, Carshalton.

Mrs Crossby, who has lived in the house for 40 years, looked out the window to see a taxi where her car normally sat while hers had been pushed sideways into the house.

She said: "I thought someone was breaking in. I woke my husband up and I thought someone was trying to break the door down.

"The back wheel was on my next door neighbour’s car. Luckily enough we’ve got a drive that’s got a step down - that’s the only thing that stopped it going through my house.

"It still hit the house but would have been worse - it would have gone straight through.

"I said to him, when I opened the door, ‘what have you done?’ and he said ‘I have had an accident’. I said ‘well you can see that’.

"My husband said ‘have you been drinking?’and he said ‘I fell asleep’.

"It is a dangerous road anyway. But you don’t expect that. It was a freak accident.

"The police breathalysed him and he was clear. We had to go and knock on the other neighbour’s doors and let them know their cars were involved. It was pretty unbelievable."

Mrs Crossby is set to get a replacement car and has reported the crash to Sutton Housing Partnership as a precaution - to make sure the house is still structurally sound.

A spokesperson for Sutton Police said they were called at 5.30am to reports of a car being involved in a collision with four parked vehicles and added: "One of the vehicles ended up in a resident’s garden.

"The driver’s details have been taken and sent to the Met’s traffic team for further investigation."


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