A journalist has shared his surprise after his “cursed” old car crashed into the gates of Downing Street.

Newsquest Scotland’s head of digital sport Jonny McFarlane has spoken about the car’s troubled past after being alerted to the fact the silver Kia Ceed he previously owned was involved in the incident yesterday evening.

A man had been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving, and remained in custody as investigators established the circumstances of the incident close to the Prime Minister’s residence in London.

Jonny’s partner Nicola noticed the car’s registration plate this morning after seeing news coverage of the crash.

Jonny told Newsquest’s Glasgow daily The Herald: “I looked at it and went: ‘wow… it can’t be? That car would have never been good to go five years on’. I was looking through the images and you could see it was the same car.

“Honestly my driving is bad, so it was scratched up and I could see in some of the pictures some of the scratches and bangs were still on it.

“Sure enough, yeah, it’s the same car. We bought it from Arnold Clark in Edinburgh and sold it to Arnold Clark in Glasgow, so I’ve no idea what it was doing in London.

“You’re just a bit taken aback knowing you’ve spent so much time in this car, I used to sit in that car for hours and hours on end. We never took it to London – I want to make that very clear.”

He added: I bought it in 2015 but for the next two years it was a nightmare – it was like it was cursed, honestly. It was constantly having issues, £500 here to fix, £600 there, £800 somewhere else.

“I’d only had it three years and yes, I’d done maybe 60,000 miles, but it was just a constant menace to my bank balance.

“I remember going to the local garage and the guy just said, ‘this car is giving you murder I don’t think it’s going to last an awful lot longer, you should consider trading it in’.

“So I traded it in and I honestly thought that car would last a maximum of a year for whoever Arnold Clark sold it on to. I thought I was selling them an absolute lemon.”