Dressed in her pyjamas and enjoying a quiet Sunday morning with her baby and partner, Stacey Sibbald-Wright’s life was torn apart when a car smashed through her front room.
Just moments before, the doting mother had been changing her 10-month-old baby near the window and Ms Sibbald-Wright revealed if the shocking incident had happened just 10 minutes earlier, they could’ve been killed.
Now six weeks later, the family-of-three are homeless and relying on friends and family to support them as they burn through their life savings in an ongoing dispute with insurance companies.
Reduced to living in hotels, the mother-of-one has been forced to buy new baby clothes and live off takeaway meals while she continues to pay rent on a home she can not longer live in.
Her family have now launched a GoFundMe to help with the costs of living in hotels and caravans as their home is repaired.
Last month Ms Sibbald-Wright, 36, from North Shields outside Newcastle was shocked to find her living room destroyed by a drunk driver who crashed in to her house.
At 9am on Sunday morning she heard a loud crash downstairs and at first believed a cupboard had fallen off the wall.
But the mum was shocked to find dust covering everything and a car though her living room windows.
Stacey Sibbald-Wright, her 10-month-old son (pictured)and partner were enjoying a quiet Sunday morning when their world was turned upside down after a car crashed in to their house
At 9am on a Sunday morning Ms Sibbald-Wright heard a loud crash and at first believed a cupboard had fallen off the wall but she was shocked to find dust covering everything and a car though her living room windows
Ms Sibbald-Wright explained she and her family had had a lucky escape as just 10 minutes before the crash she had been changing her baby by the window
She said: ‘It was me and my baby and my partner all in the house at nine o’clock, and then we heard this massive bang.
‘I thought a cupboard had fallen off. I went downstairs and there was just dust everywhere, just covering everything. You couldn’t see anything.’
Ms Sibbald-Wright explained she and her family had had a lucky escape as just 10 minutes before the crash she had been changing her baby by the window while her two dogs ran around.
‘Ten minutes before, I changed my baby by the window and then we were out in the garden. And then we went upstairs with the baby. I called the dogs in. My partner was in the in the front room and then there was the front end of a car in it.’
Ms Sibbald-Wright said she struggled to process what was happening at first and said she looked through the hole in her house and noticed a man in a car with ‘a slight graze on his nose’.
The mother added that initially the driver tried to run away but was apprehended by neighbours who pinned him down until the police arrived.
After the emergency services came, Ms Sibbald-Wright said she and her family were ushered out, still in their pyjamas and without any support.
‘I went and got my little boy, and we went out the back, but the police ushered us out and I was in my pyjamas,’ she said.
Despite the terrible experience, the Newcastle upon Tyne native said she is relieved no one was hurt and confessed that if the car had crashed in to her home just 10 minutes earlier her baby could have been killed
Six weeks on from the crash, the family-of-three have been forced to live in hotels and survive of takeaways as they wait for the outcome of an insurance claim
The mother-of-one told the Daily Mail the family were forced to leave the property immediately and weren’t able to take any clothes or belongings (the aftermath of the crash pictured)
The front room has now been boarded up before, there was only a line of police tape protecting the property which led to the thefts of valuable tools
‘We weren’t allowed to grab anything.’
As Ms Sibbald-Wright came to terms with the scene in her living room, she told the Daily Mail how the driver of the car that had destroyed her home was ‘staggering around’.
The shocked mother described the scene as ‘really insane’ and added that the police arrested the driver but the family are still processing the horrifying ordeal.
Following the crash, Ms Sibbald-Wright and her family have been living in hotels and relying on the kindness of family and friends but she told the Daily Mail that less than two months after the incident, she is already in her eighth hotel and has been having to fund the temporary accommodation from her own pocket.
She revealed: ‘We’ve had to fund it all ourselves, straight up. The insurance are paying it back, but we’ve had to pay up front.
‘We had a tiny, tiny little pot of savings, because I’m on maternity leave, so I’ve got no income at all. So we had a tiny, tiny pot of savings, and that’s just all gone on trying to fund accommodation, fund food. Just fund everything really.’
The family initially lived at a local Premier Inn for five days before Ms Sibbald-Wright sourced a caravan for them for a couple of days.
But she said it has been challenging and she has been trying to live as meagerly as possible.
Emergency services gathered outside Ms Sibbald-Wright’s home after a drunk driver smashed through the walls of their house and in to the living room
The mother also revealed that she is still paying the rent and bills on her home and was told by the insurance that if she stopped, her accommodation wouldn’t be subsidised
‘We were in the Premier Inn for five days, and then I managed to source a caravan for a couple of days. So we’ve just moved and moved and moved.
‘The thing is, we live in a seaside holiday resort in in Whitley Bay, and it’s summer as well, so we have just had to go with what’s available, really.
‘And the insurance said that we can’t really spend too much. I’ve been looking for discount codes.
‘We’ve been in caravans most of the time, the eight moves has been really difficult.’
She added: ‘One of the worst things is you leave at 10am and you can’t check in anywhere till 4pm so we’re just hanging around in restaurants spending money we don’t have to wait until we can check into the next place.’
The mother also revealed that she is still paying the rent and bills on her home and was told by the insurance that if she stopped, her accommodation wouldn’t be subsidised.
She said: ‘We’re still paying all the rent and the bills and we were just told to keep paying, otherwise they wouldn’t fund any separate accommodation. So we’re currently funding a house that we don’t actually live in.’
The worried mother added that the family have now run out of money and just after they were forced to move out, she claims their home was robbed with expensive tools including drills and a lawnmower pilfered by thieves.
She said: ‘We’re at the point now where we’ve got no money left at all. We’ve got no income that a couple of days after as well, the property wasn’t secured, and we got looted’.
Ms Sibbald-Wright confessed that the worst part of the entire ordeal was having the tools from her back garden stolen and she described feeling ‘really violated’ by the ordeal.
She added that her family have been helpful but can only do so much living in Northampton and that her maternity leave has been very difficult.
Despite the terrible experience, the Newcastle upon Tyne native said she is relieved no one was hurt and confessed that if the car had crashed in to her home just 10 minutes earlier her family would have been ‘crushed’ and her baby possibly killed.
She said: ‘Everybody kept saying, “God, you’re so lucky” and just 10 minutes before, I was changing my baby on the table.
‘If me and my partner were at the table, we would have just been crushed. And if my dogs were in the garden, in the toilet, they would have been crushed too.’
