This is the horrifying moment a driver swerves before colliding into a wall just moments before hundreds of children walk along the road to get home from school.
Just 15 minutes before students left Overleigh St Mary’s, Chester Catholic High School and St Mary's Nursery School in Handbridge last Wednesday (January 22), this driver is seen driving erratically on the wrong side of the road.
The shocking CCTV footage given exclusively to The Chronicle, shows the driver swerve onto the wrong side of the road and into a garden, before skidding back across the road and colliding with a wall.
Moments later the car reverses back, continuing on Old Wrexham Road towards the schools – on the wrong side of the road.
Parts of damaged bodywork belonging to the car were reportedly later found scattered outside the high school’s gates.
And, to the shock of the CCTV camera’s owner, the car is seen driving back down the road around eight minutes later – moving back onto the wrong side of the road again as it drives past the homeowner’s camera.
Eileen McCarthy, who had the camera installed at her family home on Old Wrexham Road after her car was damaged, said she was 'horrified' when she checked the footage and saw the car driving onto her garden at 2.45pm.
“I saw the tyre marks in the grass,” said Eileen, who has lived in the house for 15 years.
“My son phoned me at work and said there were tyre marks all over the grass and mud all over the house.”
Eileen said her sons, Sam, 15, and Ben, 11, attend the Catholic High School, and they, along with dozens of other children walk home along the busy road each day.
“If I had decided to walk to work my car would have been parked there. That would have been the least of my worries,” said Eileen, who said the school’s walking bus uses the route.
“We have problems every day with buses mounting the pavement and it is an accident waiting to happen.
“It was lucky as there are normally cars parked all along there. You see a woman walking along the road moments after. It obviously doesn’t bear thinking about what could have happened if it had been just 15 minutes later.”
Eileen, who is the company director of Chester based UK auctioneers.com, contacted the police after watching the footage, but they are struggling to contact the driver as the car is registered to a number of different drivers in Winsford.
Cheshire police confirmed they were currently attempting to track down the driver of the vehicle but as the footage 'doesn’t show the whole story' they would only be offering advice to the motorist.
“Without speaking to them we do not know what happened. There could be a normal explanation for the way they are driving,” said an officer, who did not wish to be named, but said the driver could have been swerving to avoid an animal.
“It does not show the whole story of what happened, there is no evidence of foul play.”
