A FAMILY’S nightmare has come to an end almost a year after a car ploughed into their Oakwell home.

Ramesh Nerella, his wife Sunitha and two young children were uprooted just before Christmas when the car, which was being chased by police officers, careered into the corner of their house on Oakwell Vale.

The family had gone to bed early and were lucky not to be injured, but the kitchen was destroyed.

They spent the next several months living in hotels, moving from one to another because there were no long term vacancies.

They were then put up in a rental property, but Ramesh received complaints from his neighbours about his children Vaishnavi, five, and Avi, three, running about. So Sunitha took the children to India for three months, where the family is from and where they have relatives.

Ramesh joined them for just ten days because he did not have enough holidays at work to stay any longer.

But this week, Ramesh, 37, a programmer, told the Chronicle of his sheer relief to be back at home.

He said: “The repairs are nearly done, but there are some electrical works still to be done.

“But everyone is glad to be back at home, that is the only positive. It has been a huge strain on me personally and financially.

“I keep trying to forget what happened. Nobody was injured, that’s what I keep thinking.

“It was awful to be away from my family. But it’s nice to be back together.”

Ramesh said the kitchen was completely destroyed, and while most of the work was covered by the insurance, he had to fork out £1,500 for kitchen units. This was because the insurance would only cover the cost of the damaged units, but could not find any units which were the same as the ones which were not damaged, meaning the kitchen units would be mismatched. There were also some gardening works which Ramesh paid for.

In all, he estimates that he has paid out up to £5,000.

The incident happened last November. Ramesh and Sunitha had gone to bed early but heard a huge crash and felt the whole house shake with the impact of the car.

Ramesh described coming downstairs to find a gaping hole in the house, and the road cordoned-off by police. He said the impact had been so powerful that bricks from the wall had flown to the other side of the kitchen.

South Yorkshire Police confirmed the car was being chased by officers at the time of the crash, and the driver was sentenced to 16 months in prison after pleading guilty to dangerous driving, failing to stop and having no insurance or licence.