A PENSIONER got the fright of her life when thieves jumped out of a stolen van late at night and left it to roll into her front door.

Teresa Williamson, a retired care support worker, had just spent £25,000 renovating her three-bedroom terrace home in Rosemount Avenue, Elland, when the incident occurred just before midnight on Thursday.

Teresa, a 66-year-old mother of six, said: “I had just gone been playing Facebook games on my laptop and had got in to bed.

“I must have gone to sleep because the next thing I knew was when I woke up with a jolt. I looked out of the window and saw the van wedged into my porch.

“I got dressed as quickly as I could and ran downstairs to find all my neighbours asking if I was OK and some of them worrying about a hissing noise – thinking, mistakenly, as it turned out, that a gas meter may have been hit.

“I put the outside light on to see what was happening – the front door wouldn’t open and the kitchen door was jammed.

“There were police cars everywhere and then a fire engine turned up and a structural engineer came out from Calderdale Council and builders who propped up the porch. They were the last to leave at 5am.

“I have spent £25,000 over two years renovating this property so I didn’t know whether to swear or cry when it happened.

“It could have been worse. My auntie, Lily Allen, used to have the house before me and lived here for years from the 1950s and she never had any bother. It’s normally a very quite street.”

One of her daughters, Mandy Kendall, 41, said: “My mum makes a big fuss about Christmas but now it will be a case of having the builders round to repair the damage rather than thinking about Christmas.

“She must have been heartbroken when she finally got to sleep.”

Currently, the front door of the house is boarded up and Teresa has to walk across her next door neighbour’s property to get out.

Builders will have to repair damage to the interior of the house with damage stretching upstairs and into the kitchen.

Teresa had the house ripped back to its shell before having it completely renovated.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “At 11:50pm on Thursday police were called to a tyre yard on the Lowfield’s Business Park in Elland after thieves in a Transit van stole tyres from a HGV parked outside the premises.

“The suspects left the scene in the van which was seen by officers on Lowfield’s Way. The van failed to stop and was followed to Rosemount Avenue where the suspects fled from the van.

“The van was left insecure and rolled into a house on Rosemount Avenue causing damage to the property and a blue Daihatsu parked at the address.

“Three men aged 27, 27 and 28 were arrested near the scene and are currently in custody.

The Transit van was later found to have been stolen from the Waterloo area of Huddersfield on the 19 September.”

Enquiries are ongoing and anyone with details is asked to contact Calderdale police on 101.