A MOTORIST lost control of his car after clipping a kerb, struck a lamppost and careered into a parked vehicle.

Durham Crown Court was told the parked car was then shunted into the front of a house.

The court heard that witnesses to the incident, two women sitting outside the Half Moon pub, in Easington Village, County Durham, feared they would be struck in the mayhem.

Shaun Dryden, prosecuting, said the driver, Gareth Tomlinson, fled the scene, leaving the parked car a £7,530 write-off, while the house received some structural damage.

Twenty-two-year-old Tomlinson, of Alisha Vale, Easington Colliery, admitted careless driving and failing to stop after an accident, arising from the incident on May 26, offences putting him in breach of an earlier suspended sentence for possessing cannabis.

Martin Scarborough, mitigating, said the defendant, who was “genuinely remorseful”, feared losing his job at the Caterpillar industrial vehicle plant, in Peterlee, if he was to receive a custodial sentence.

Judge Robert Adams told Tomlinson, however, that the suspended sentence was imposed for, “entirely different offending”, so he would not activate it in this case.

He ordered Tomlinson to pay £710 in fines and costs and endorsed his licence with eight penalty points.