A bank worker narrowly escaped serious injury when a taxi ploughed into the front of a city centre bank yesterday.

The employee was sitting on a sofa near a glass window when the black cab swerved off Colmore Row and smashed into the front of Icici Bank, at around 4.30pm yesterday.

A laminated front glass window came crashing down near to where the 32-year-old man was sitting.

The worker sustained a minor eye injury in the accident and the taxi driver, who is aged 40, also suffered a slight head injury.

Ed Orchard, assistant manager of Oddbins next door to the bank, said: “I heard two bangs and a smash which was the window. I presume the first bang was when the taxi hit the kerb the second when it hit the planter and then the window.”

West Midlands Ambulance Service said an employee at ICICI's branch in Colmore Row was taken City Hospital for treatment to an eye injury after the crash.

An ambulance service spokesman said: "A car struck a large plant pot on the pavement before colliding with the large plate glass window in the bank.