Updated 3 Sept

About five cars were damaged, some extensively, after a driver smashed into cars waiting to exit the Pama car park in Mosta. 

Nobody was hurt after a car was seen smashing into the vehicles in front of it, and then reversing at speed into the cars behind, waiting to exit the shopping complex. 

"It seems the driver went nuts, he started smashing into the adjacent cars at speed," a witness told Times of Malta, who added that the nature of the incident triggered off panic among those present, some of whom were heard saying they initially feared a "terrorist" attack. 

But according to the driver's son, the incident happened when the man confused the gears on his automatic drive car. 

"He was trying to get out of his parking slot... he lost control of his car, trying to go forward and backwards," he told Times of Malta. 

Witnesses described the driver as an elderly man in a "state of confusion" and said he was restrained by security guards on site, before police were called in. 

His son disputed this claim, saying his father was urged to sit down to calm himself down from the state of shock he found himself in following the crash. 

During the time of the incident, there was a lot of traffic building up outside the shopping complex.