Bus smashes into shop front as driver fights off knife robbers

A double-decker bus carrying dozens of passengers smashed into a car and a shop as its driver fought off two teenage robbers who attacked him with knives as he drove along a busy south London street.

Commuters endured a terrifying late-night ride as the driver of the number 250 bus refused to stop and hand over the contents of his cash box.

Onlookers watched in horror as the bus, which was carrying 27 passengers, swerved across a road before going through a red light and then into the path of another vehicle before careering into the front of a newsagents.

The drama began at about 10pm, shortly after the bus, which runs between Brixton and Croydon, had pulled away from a stop in Parchmore Road, Thornton Heath.

Witnesses described seeing the driver and the robbers struggling with each other as the bus travelled at about 30mph along the road. It is thought that rather than give in to their demands, the driver tried to fend off the pair as they tried to stab him in the head.

But the fight caused him to lose control of the vehicle, which crashed into a Vauxhall Vectra saloon after driving through a red light. The impact forced the bus to career across to the wrong side of Parchmore Road, close to its junction with Beulah Road, before crashing into the newsagents.

Police sources said the two young robbers fled when the driver opened the bus doors.

Fearing they would return with reinforcements, the driver carried on his journey, along with his passengers, into Croydon. The driver of the black Vauxhall, a woman in her thirties, was not seriously injured in the crash. None of the 27 passengers nor the bus driver was injured either.

The shop was closed at the time of the crash but a tenant in a flat above called the police.

Shop owner Robin Patel, 51, said: "By the time I got there it was a scene of total destruction. The woman who was driving the car told me the bus driver was trying to stop the teenagers stabbing him in the head. Nobody was in the shop at the time and luckily no one was walking past."

The married father of two said it had caused about £15,000 of damage. He added: "We have problems with youths around here but never anything like this."

No arrests have been made so far.

A TfL spokeswoman confirmed that the bus had hit a car and a shop-front, but refused to confirm whether the driver had been threatened with a knife.

The incident comes as figures show the number of physical attacks on bus drivers in London is increasing.

The latest statistics available from Transport for London show there were 1,116 attacks on bus drivers in 2007. Of those, almost 120 were classed as serious assaults.

The previous year, there were 1,001 assaults on drivers. Of those, 135 were serious assaults.