A three-year-old boy was badly injured when his mother's car was in a collision with a tractor.

The child was strapped into a baby seat when baling forks on the tractor pierced the side of his 31-year-old mother's Audi.

Attached to the front of the Ford tractor was a loader with two long spikes for spearing and picking up bales of hay.

The spikes sliced through the side of the car and struck the little boy, leaving him with serious head injuries.

Emergency services were called to the scene on the C18 road at Hetton Steads, near Lowick, Northumberland, on Wednesday morning.

A Northumbria police spokesman said the tractor was travelling north when the accident happened.

"The two-foot long protruding claws pierced the body of the car. The three-year-old child travelling in the back seat was injured and detained in the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle," said the spokesman.

The child's condition was said to be serious but was not thought to be life threatening.

His parents, who live in the area where the crash happened, were at his hospital bedside yesterday.

The 51-year-old driver of the Ford tractor was uninjured.