A BMW rolled down a hill, smashed through a back yard and two fences, before plummeting 15ft into a river, and landing on its roof.

The black 1 Series 56 registered car was written off after the handbrake failed.

Shocked owner Aisha Bagdadi said she had only popped into her friend’s house, in Progress Avenue, Blackb-urn, for five minutes.

When she left the property, shortly after 6pm on Tuesday, her car had gone and was later found upside down in the Riv- er Blakewater. The 29-year-old mother-of-one said: “The car was parked up and I definitely put the handbrake on. It must have failed.

“When I came out of my friend’s house, there were loads of police and, for a minute, I thought the car had been stolen, or that my husb-and was playing a joke on me.

“There was all sorts going through my head. I asked someone if there was a car in the river. They said ‘yes’ and I knew it was my car.

 

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“The police said it is one of those things, an accident, it happens.”

Fire crews, police, and an ambulance, were called to the scene, in the Little Harwood area of the town, although it was soon discovered there was nobody in the car.

A recovery team yesterday worked to lift the BMW out of the culvert Khalid Esat, whose garden the car tore through, said it was lucky nobody had been killed.

The 29-year-old of Chur-ch Hill Street, who is due to start work at Blackb-urn Youth Zone, said: “We were very, very lucky nothing major happen-ed. It could have been fatal.

“The lady was dropp-off a friend. She just went inside the house and the car came zooming down the street. There was nobody inside the car, nobody walking past, and no cars, thank God.

“It took off the front end of my fence, the boulders and posts, went through the gard-en onto the other side, and then into the wat-er upside down.”