A grandmother has been left “in total shock” after a car narrowly avoided hitting her and her toddler grandson.

Jannine Eley was strapping two-year-old Roman into his car seat when another vehicle scraped her car and sped off, slicing part of the door’s frame.

The 58-year-old said: “If it had been an inch either way, we could have been seriously injured or worse.”

The Minster resident had just dropped off her niece in Oak Lane, Upchurch, when she began to strap Roman, her only grandchild, into her new Hyundai Tuscon at about 4pm on Friday, December 8.

She says a red Nissan X Trial came speeding along the road, scraping the side of her car and tearing off its own wing mirror in the process.

But the driver failed to stop.

Ms Eley said: “I’m not exactly stick thin. I have a bright red car and the door was propped against my backside, so I wasn’t hard to miss.

“My niece was inside my brother’s house and she heard the crash. She came running out in tears worried that me and Roman could have been hurt.

“It took me a couple of minutes to realise what had happened.

“I was in total shock and didn’t take the licence plate.”

Police reviewed CCTV footage from the nearby Co-op and saw the red 4x4 driving along the road, moments after crashing into Mrs Eley’s Hyundai, which she had been driving for just four weeks.

Ms Eley, of Mallard Court, said: “I’m not too bothered about the damage to the car. It’s only a bit of metal damage that will be fixed at the end of the day.

“What bothers me is that Roman was in the car.

“I keep going over it again and again. If the car had come by a minute or two later, it could have been a very different story.

“I don’t see why they couldn’t have just stopped and said sorry. Maybe they were drunk or don’t have a driving licence.”

A police spokesman confirmed an investigation was under way.

Anyone with information should call 101 quoting crime reference 08-0838.