A YOUNG girl leapt for her life as a runaway car careered out of control on a steep town centre street after she accidentally knocked off the handbrake.

Alison Lonsdale, eight, jumped from the Volvo 740 moments before it bounced over several kerbs and ploughed into a parked Ford Mondeo pushing it into a house wall.

She was taken to hospital suffering from a broken collar bone.

The drama happened after Alison, of Wordsworth Road, Colne, had finished dance lessons. She had gone with her mum Susan and nine-year-old sister Jennifer and afterwards asked if she could wait for them in the car, which was parked in nearby Great George Street, Colne.

"She got into the passenger seat at the front and leant over to leave the keys for her mum," said dad Geoffrey. "She accidentally knocked the handbrake off. The car is an automatic and was in the park position but it didn't hold it." Alison, a pupil at Lord Street Primary School, Colne, said: "The car started to roll down the hill so I opened the door and jumped out. I rolled over a few times and banged my shoulder and my head on the ground."

The Volvo picked up speed as it rolled 30 yards down the steep hill and slammed into the Ford parked in Cambridge Street, which runs at right angles at the bottom of Great George Street. The force of the impact swung the car into a house wall causing damage to the brickwork.

"It was a freak accident," said Geoffrey. "Luckily there weren't any more children around at the time.

"Both cars were badly damaged and they are talking about writing them both off. I told the police about the fact it was in park and they checked the gears and said everything was fine."

Alison was taken to Burnley General Hospital for treatment to her collarbone, cuts and bruises before being allowed home.

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