Carjack link to stabbing

Detectives investigating the stabbing of a 25-year-old estate agent in Battersea are examining possible links to a violent carjacking just hours earlier.

They believe both cases may be linked and one possibility is that a gang of robbers are targeting drivers of highvalue cars in south London.

Timothy Robinson was parking his Audi car outside his home after picking up girlfriend Jemma Joyce, 26, from the West End on Sunday night when they were approached by two men who asked for directions.

He finished parking and got out to ask the men where they wanted to go but within seconds they had grabbed him and stabbed him half a dozen times in the face, chest and upper arm.

Detectives say the two men were strangers to Mr Robinson and are keeping an open mind about the apparently motiveless attack. There appears to have been no demand for money.

One line of inquiry is that they were trying to steal his car but ran off towards the nearby Doddington estate when the robbery went wrong.

It emerged today that another couple were robbed of their Audi TT car in a knifepoint carjacking nearby just three hours earlier.

In the earlier case three men surrounded a car and held the couple at knifepoint before jumping into the car and driving away.

The woman victim of the robbery, who refused to be named, said: "Three guys surrounded our car and one tried to grab my bag. When I struggled a bit he threatened me with a knife. They pulled us both out on the pavement and they jumped in and drove off with everything - bags, mobiles and luggage."

Police sources say they are trying to discover if the two cases are linked. Mr Robinson remains critically ill in hospital after undergoing surgery yesterday.

Police praised the actions of local people in helping Mr Robinson after neighbours and passers-by were alerted by the screams of Miss Joyce, a student teacher.

They were chased by a passing woman motorist in a Fiat Punto but they stopped and flashed a knife at her, forcing her to reverse away.

Mr Robinson and his girlfriend are white and the suspects are both black and in their early 20s. One was short and the other tall. Detectives have not recovered a weapon.

Mr Robinson's parents and sisters have travelled from Hampshire to be at his bedside at St Thomas' Hospital. Miss Joyce has been left "severely traumatised" by the attack.

DCI Dick Wolfenden, of Battersea CID, said: "I would like to appeal to anyone who was in Warriner Gardens, who may have witnessed this vicious and apparently motiveless attack to contact police as soon as possible."