A COUNCIL has defended its decision to take action against a teenager who crashed his car after allegedly hitting a pothole.

Mark Morris, from Mill Lane, Middlewich, told the Guardian last week that his son, Elliott, crashed into a lamp post on London Road in Northwich in February last year.

The father contacted Cheshire West AND Chester Council and suggested that if they pay for the lamppost, he would not bill them for the car damage, claiming the incident wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the pothole.

But he was shocked when he received an invoice – 11 months later.

A council spokesman said: “At no point did the council enter into any agreement with Mr Morris regarding the collision involving his son.

“As soon as the council was notified of the police’s comments, which were received at the end of January 2014, we instructed our claims handlers to repudiate the claim.”

Elliot, 19, was driving to St Nicholas Catholic School in Hartford with his sister at the time of the crash.

Elliot claims his car veered off the road because his steering stopped working after driving through a pothole.

The council spokesman added: “Our most recent highway inspection prior to the collision revealed no dangerous defects within the vicinity of the collision site and comments from the police corroborate this.”

The council also told the Guardian that the pothole in question was 100 yards from the collision site.