BANNED driver Gerald Hicks has been remanded in custody after he admitted reversing a car into a Penhill garden where young children had been playing.

The one-ton Ford Sierra Sapphire landed just feet from where the youngsters had been sitting after it smashed through a fence which seconds earlier they had been playing behind.

Hicks, 31, was on bail for two house burglaries, in which jewellery worth thousands of pounds was stolen, when he was spotted by police behind the wheel of the car on Latton Close.

As officers tried to stop him on a Sunday lunch-time in March, he reversed away at speed careering through four concrete fence posts into the garden on neighbouring Ramsbury Avenue.

Swindon Crown Court heard that witnesses estimated the reversing car's speed at up to 30mph before it smashed into the garden.

Speaking shortly after the incident Jennifer Prowse, whose three children had been in the garden moments before the smash, said: "They're all traumatised by the accident."

Chris Smyth, defending, told the court that his client accepted he reversed at 15mph before colliding with the garden fence but disputed narrowly missing the children.

He said Hicks had driven away after police smashed one of the car's windows, spraying glass into Hicks' face.

At an earlier hearing magistrates were told how Hicks had been caught in a house on Chapel Street. He ran off when he was confronted, but on being caught, he had jewellery worth £6,000 in his possession, which had been taken earlier from a house on Gipsy Lane, including a gold ring he was wearing.

Hicks said he that he had met a friend, who sold him the jewellery for £500.

Hicks, of Briarswood Court, Liden, pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary, dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and without insurance.

The case was adjourned for a plea to the dangerous driving to be considered and Hicks was remanded in custody.