Car ploughs into Tipton factory reception

This is the scene after a car ploughed into a factory in Tipton causing damage put at about £30,000.

It happened at 1pm yesterday when the car veered into John Stokes Ltd in High Street, Princes End.

The driver was not seriously injured but was taken to hospital.

Click the gallery on the right to see a gallery of pictures

Tom Stokes, managing director of the chrome plating firm, said the car, a blue Volkswagen Sharan, ploughed into a reception area which had recently undergone a £25,000 refurbishment.

Mr Stokes, who was not at the factory at the time of the crash but has viewed it on the company CCTV, said he was on the phone to his father at the time and the crash sounded "like a bomb had gone off".

He added: "He was coming from Parkes Lane which is notorious, there are always two to three little bumps per year.

"Everyone is assuming he has just passed out at the wheel.

"It looks like he has gone in at 50 to 60mph. We have a five-ton metal safe in the building, and it looks like that's what stopped him."