A man from Steeton had a miraculous escape when a car smashed into his house as he made a cup of tea.

Bob Barras, 29, threw himself to the floor when the black Mercedes C220 crashed into the wall of the stone-built kitchen in the farmhouse he shares with his parents in Barrows Lane, Whitley Head.

The force of the collision was “like an explosion” and sent large stones from the wall and a heavy granite worktop flying across the kitchen – just missing Mr Barras.

The car had struck a lamp-post, spun on to the opposite side of the narrow country lane and into the kitchen window.

Mr Barras, who had just come home from work when the crash happened, said: “I was scared. I saw a black car coming down the road and all of a sudden there was a whack and I just jumped out of the way. I was shaking.”

His mum Linda and dad Sid ran into the badly-damaged kitchen to check on their son, who has Down’s Syndrome.

Luckily, he suffered only a small graze on his leg.

Mr Barras senior, 64, said: “He had just been at the Aga making tea. How he wasn’t killed, I don’t know.

“It was as if somebody had dropped a bomb and there was Bob on the floor. There was dust everywhere and I couldn’t see what was happening.”

Mr Barras, a former British champion cyclist, “shot outside” to see whether any of the men in the car had been injured.

Mrs Barras said: “We looked into the car, expecting to see somebody seriously injured – if not fatally – but he came back and said they had legged it.”

He then got in his car and, with a neighbour, chased the four men, who police described as Asian and in their 20s, as they made off towards Keighley Tarn.

He said: “We got halfway up the hill and they had crossed over the wall. I told the last one what I would do if I caught him.

“It was pandemonium, all the neighbours were out and the ambulance was here.”

Firefighters and the police were also called to the scene following the crash at about 5.30pm on Tuesday.

The fire service cordoned off the road and police redirected traffic as Bob was treated for shock in an ambulance.

The owner of the badly-damaged car, a man from Bradford, turned up later and told the family that the men who had fled had had permission to use the car.

The crash caused more than £40,000 worth of damage and the family are now having to cook in their camper van.

Mrs Barras is now calling for a major overhaul of safety on the narrow road.

He said: “We think it should be 20mph with traffic calming.”

A police spokesman said: “We were called to Barrows Lane at 5.34pm to reports that four men had crashed a car into a wall and run off towards Keighley Tarn.

“The men, who are described as four Asian men in their 20s, made off.

“No arrests have been made.”