A FATHER told today of his lucky escape after 50 house bricks crashed down on to his car.

Ashidul Haque, 27, had parked the Vauxhall Cavalier in Bromley Street, Blackburn, yesterday, moments before high winds blew the bricks from the gable end house.

The bricks crashed from 30 feet on to the car roof and the vehicle started to roll down the street and hit a parked car.

Ashidul would normally have left his two sons, Sahidul, six, and Zohurul, five, in the car but the two were ill and had been left at home.

Ashidul, of Arthur Way, Blackburn, five minutes from the scene of the accident, said: "We were chatting away in the house then five minutes later we heard something dropping and smash.

"My friend's wife looked through the window and began screaming. She was saying that bricks had come down on to the car roof.

"We went outside and there were three Beardwood High School children walking along the road. They were shocked. If they had been on the pavement they would have been hit.

"My first thought was thank God my boys weren't in the car. I take them out all the time with me.

"Normally I just park the car and pop in to say hello, leaving them there.

"If I had done that they would have been crushed and that was all that was going through my mind.

"The car is finished but that's not important."

Ashidul said he only had third party fire and theft insurance and was not covered for the accident. The only way he will get his money back is if the building from which the bricks fell is insured.

Police sealed off Bromley Street for one and a half hours after the accident as safety inspectors ensured that no more bricks would fall in the wind.

Now the building has been fenced off.

Council officers are deciding what action to take.