AN elderly couple have spoken of their ongoing nightmare after a van ploughed through the front of their home last year.

Michael and Rose Archer were asleep in bed when the Ford Transit skidded opposite Radcliffe Hall Primary School and smashed into the house in Bury Street at 5am on August 22.

The driver, Dario Rodrigues, was given a community order earlier this month for the offence, and last week was banned from driving for three years for a separate drink-driving offence.

The crash caused damage worth £7,000 to the house’s brickwork, door and hallway, which took the couple until January to fully repair.

Rodrigues, aged 32, abandoned the vehicle after the crash but later called the police at 9pm.

Mr Archer, a retired papermaker, aged 65, is now backing widespread calls for improved safety measures after a number of crashes on the sharp bend.

He said: “The damage that was done to the house can be repaired – it’s just bricks and mortar – but the mental damage we have suffered is the worst thing.

“Every time we hear a car screeching round that corner we panic because it brings back all the bad memories.

“I’m at an age now where I would like to move house but I’m not sure we can afford it.

“We have lived here since the 1970s and I worked hard for 40 years to pay for this house.

“Something has to be done about that road now and there are plenty of things that can be done to make it safer."

In March this year, calls for improved safety measures were renewed following two crashes along the Bury Street stretch in the space of four days.

Campaigners called for better road safety signs warning of the sharp bends, and anti-skid road surfacing.

At the time, Bury Council’s highways department said it was intending to put up enhanced warning signs.

* Rodrigues, of Kingston Road, Radcliffe, appeared before Bury magistrates on February 27 this year, and admitted causing a car crash and failing to report it to the police. He denied driving without due care and attention and was found guilty.

On April 13, magistrates ordered him carry out 120 hours of unpaid work, to pay £250 compensation to the Archers, £500 court costs and a £60 victim surcharge.

On April 21, he was banned from driving for three years after admitting charges of drink driving, driving without insurance, failing to surrender to custody and failing to adhere to bail conditions relating to an incident in Warth Fold Road on February 25.

He was also ordered to pay £150 court costs, a £350 fine and a £30 victim surcharge.