A PENSIONER had a lucky escape when his car ploughed off the road and crashed into a garden.

Mike McCarthy, 82, was driving in Greenwillows Road, Cwmbran, yesterday when his Ford Sierra left the road and crashed, stopping just a few feet from Sandra Sweeting's front door.

Mrs Sweeting was working at The Oakfield pub opposite her home just after 11am when she realised the Sierra had crashed through her hedge.

The porch and concrete slabs in the garden were damaged in the crash, the telephone and television cables under the patio were disconnected.

The Sierra was also severely damaged, but Mr McCarthy, of nearby Court Farm Road, escaped injury.

Surveying the damage, believed to run into several thousands of pounds, Mrs Sweeting told the Argus:

"I couldn't believe it - I was doing my cleaning shift at the pub across the road, and I looked out of the window and said.

'There's a car gone into a garden, it's my garden!' I thought I was seeing things. "As well as damaging the garden, the television and telephone are down - I can't believe what's happened."

Mrs Sweeting's daughters, Zoe, eight, and Rebecca, six, were both at Oakfield Primary School when the accident happened.

She said: "I am just glad they were not coming home for dinner when it happened." Mr McCarthy was too shocked to comment but son Phil said his father's foot had slipped on the accelerator pedal.

"He is just glad nobody was hurt," he said. A Cwmbran police spokes-man said: "This was an unfortunate accident and fortunately nobody was hurt.

"No further police action is to be taken." The car was taken away by a recovery company.

The accident was a day after a car crashed through the wall of a cottage, landing just feet from a chair where the owner was sitting.

The Argus reported yesterday that Eric Jarman, 91, suffered cuts to his legs as bricks flew into the room, hitting him and smashing a vase in the cottage near the Beaufort Arms between Little Mill and Usk.

The car driver was treated for shock.