A FAMILY felt the force of an elephant's fury on Sunday- when it threw a rock through their car window.

Shireen and Anthony Birch had taken their twin four-year-old sons and parents on a trip to West Midland Safari Park as a belated birthday treat when a 10-year-old male African elephant called Tooth smashed a window in their Hyundai Lantra with a rock.

Mrs Birch said they had spent about an hour at the busy attraction in Bewdley before their trip turned into "something from Jurassic Park", with the rock smashing her window and hitting her 60-year-old mum Ann's leg.

The 32-year-old secretary from Birmingham said she was left "terrified" and "shocked" by the incident at about 11.30am, just after she had taken a picture of Tooth through the window.

"I got my video camera out afterwards and I was saying to the boys 'look at that lovely elephant, isn't he nice and look he's bringing his trunk up' - and with that he threw the rock through the window," she said.

"It came straight past me and hit my mum on the leg.

"The force of it breaking the window slowed the stone down but if the window hadn't been wound up it would have gone in my face."

Mrs Birch added her sons Louis and Callum had moved to the front of the car to enable her to take the photograph and took "it all in their stride", calling Tooth a "naughty elephant".

"I looked back at the elephant after it happened and it was just looking at me and I thought what's it going to do next, is it going to charge after me," she added.

"But we couldn't move quickly because we were moving with the traffic. It was like something out of Jurassic Park!"

The park's head warden Bob Lawrence said it was the first time in 25 years that anything like this had happened.

He added the park had paid for the damage and did not blame Tooth, who had not been punished and was still out in the enclosure.

"I think people had been feeding him and he picked up the rock thinking it was something to eat and when it wasn't he threw it at the car in disgust.

"Obviously we will pick up anything on the floor to make sure this can't happen again."

Mrs Birch and her family, of Tile Cross, Birmingham, returned to the tourist attraction on Tuesday "to make peace" with Tooth.