A CRASH at a Northwich car showroom has left a man with a broken arm and leg caused more than £100,000 of damage to five vehicles parked on the forecourt.

The 21-year-old Northwich man was taken to the high dependency unit at Leighton Hospital following the incident, at 1am on April 3.

The BMW he was travelling in left Manchester Road, ploughed through security posts at Christopher Neil Lotus and TVR Sales and into five new cars.

The driver's injuries were not thought to be life threatening and no other people were hurt in the incident.

Damage was caused to three Lotus sports cars, an Audi TT and a TVR.

Although the garage was still waiting for confirmation from the insurance company it is likely a Lotus Elise will be a right-off.

Steve Jeavons, sales manager at Christopher Neil, said: "I think it is just one of those freak, one-in-a-million kind of things. We do have substantial security posts but there isn't really much we could have done to stop this from happening."

The first people on the scene were a husband and wife who were driving past in their car.

The woman, who did not want to be named, said: "When we arrived it had just happened and there was only one person in the car. Three cars were really badly damaged and one of them had had its roof ripped off."

The road was blocked off while the police made the area safe.

phennessey@guardiangrp.co.uk