A car being pursued by police almost hit a child when it came off a road and ploughed straight into the front of homes near a pub.

Shocked residents in High Street, Greenhithe, opened their front door on Saturday night to find a car blocking their exit.

Barmaid Ashlea Frost was working at The Pier pub when she heard a loud bang outside and then screaming.

She says the car came to rest just a short distance away from a family who had just left the pub and could have easily been hit.

“We heard a child screaming and we went outside,” she said. “The car was literally inches from hitting the child. They had just had dinner and left the pub.

“It’s gone straight up the wall and hit the next-door neighbour’s house.”

Bryan and Margaret Parry live next to The Pier and their home was one of those struck by the car.

Margaret said: “We were just having our evening meal and we heard this enormous great noise. We came out and there was a car right in front of our front door.

“We were just so lucky the brick planter is in front of our house or the car would have gone straight through our front door.”

The couple, who have lived there for more than 40 years, only had scaffolding poles taken down from outside their home days earlier.

“It was so lucky they weren’t still there or there would have been poles flying everywhere and the scaffolding would have fallen down,” Margaret said.

The couple are now totalling up the cost of the damage to the door frame and some of the brickwork on the building, which is more than 150 years old.

Neighbour Trish Farinas said the noise of the crash outside her house “sounded like an explosion”.

She said it was only after the police had gone and the chaos had died down that she realised how different it could have been.

“I was sitting in my living room and the window is right next to the street. It could have potentially hit me.

“It was such a shock opening the front door and seeing the car there. The car door was open and the person had already gone.

“There were police and flashing nights everywhere. You felt quite helpless.”

She said if the planter had not been in the way to stop the car it could have been a lot worse.

“The car stopped inches from a little boy and there were lots of people outside the pub. It could have been terrible.”

Rasheedat Keshiro lives opposite the pub with her three young children. She said they ran downstairs crying when they heard the loud bang.

“They were so scared,” she said. “It was such a loud noise.”

The crash happened during a car chase involving Essex Police, a dog unit and a traffic unit.

A spokesman for Essex Police said: “Officers were following a cloned car over the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge towards Kent shortly before 7.25pm on February 10.

“The driver of the vehicle, a VW T-ROC, failed to stop for police when requested and drove off at speed resulting in a short pursuit.

“The car collided with a wall in High Street, Greenhithe, and two occupants ran off.

“The car was recovered for forensic examination.

“There have been no arrests yet, but our inquiries continue.”

If you have any information, CCTV, dash cam or other footage in relation to this incident, you can submit a report via the Essex police website or by using the online Live Chat service available Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays) between 10am-9pm, quoting incident 956 of 0956.

To make an anonymous report, contact the independent charity on Twitter at @CrimestoppersUK, by visiting its website or by calling 0800 555 111.