A CAR smashed into the side of a house- just feet away from where a newborn baby was sleeping.

The driver of the red Volkswagen lost control after hitting the curb, smashing into the back of a parked car before hitting the house in Clayburn Circle, Basildon.

The car ploughed through the garden wall, before ending up in the downstairs toilet at about 8.20pm on Friday.

Graham Holt's six-week-old daughter Nerys was sleeping in the living room, just 6ft away.

Mr Holt, 43, was upstairs at the time bathing his older children when he heard what sounded like thunder striking the house.

The family fled their home while a terrified neighbour screamed at them to get out.

Mr Holt, a stay-at-home husband, said the car missed a gas pipe by inches.

He said: “It sounded like thunder smashing into the side of the house.

“I am just so thankful everybody is alive and the house didn’t fall down.

“Sometimes you see stuff like this on the TV, but you don’t expect it to happen to you.

“The car hit the curb on the other side of the road, then bounced into a neighbour’s parked car and smashed into our house.”

His wife Angie Holt, a 36-year-old psychiatric nurse, who grew up in Clayburn Circle, has called on Essex Highways to put speed bumps on the road.

She said: “It’s unbelievable.

“I’ve had premonitions that something like this would happen here ever since I was a child.

“People drive like maniacs and I’m fed up with it.

“There is a blind bend on the lead up to our house and drivers hammer around it.

“I would never allow my children to play out in the road.”

A builder, who is a friend of the family, installed girders on Friday night to help prop up the house.

The couple, who were looking forward to watching action film Die Hard after putting their children to bed on Friday night, are waiting for a surveyor to deem whether the house is safe to live in.

Mr Holt added: “We’ve been told the house is safe for now.

“It’s strange because everyone who drives past just stared at it now.

“After the incident we just sat there in shock, wondering what we are supposed to do next, and we never did watch Die Hard in the end."

Anyone with information about the crash can call Essex Police on 101.

An Essex County Council spokesperson said: “The Basildon Highways Panel hasn’t had any information so far about problems in Clayburn Circle, but it is always helpful to have local knowledge fed into how councillors decide their priorities.

"Mr and Mrs Holt can help by giving all the details and ideas they have, so that the issue can be discussed by the Highways Panel.

"It may be, for example, that survey work would show the extent of speeding on this road.”