Wright's son dragged from Porsche

The wife and young son of footballer turned TV presenter Ian Wright are recovering today after thieves dragged the boy out of the star's car to steal it.

Deborah Wright, 33, left seven-year-old son Stacey in the car on a Texaco filling station forecourt in Purley at about 6.45pm yesterday while she went to pay for petrol.

As she returned to the £70,000 Porsche, she saw the thieves pulling her son out of the car before they raced off, the former Arsenal and England striker told The Sun.

Wright, who fronts BBC1's Friends Like These, said he had been called by his wife as he was in rehearsals at a studio.

The 38-year-old TV star said: "I'm still shaking from a mixture of anger and sheer terror.

"He's a robust lad and doesn't cry easily but they must have roughed him up a lot because he was beside himself when I spoke to his mum.

"I could hear him crying. They both sounded in a terrible state. It's hard to believe people could stoop so low."

Wright said he drove another car from the studios where he was working to pick up his stranded family which included his three-year-old daughter Bobbi who was waiting to be collected from nursery school nearby.

Although the car has a distinctive personalised number plate, Wright believes the thieves had no idea whose car they were taking. He added: "I'm glad they didn't realise it was my car because they might have taken Stacey with them. This could easily have turned into a kidnap." Police later found the blue Porsche 911 convertible nearby after activating the car's hi-tech tracking system.

The family's belongings in the car were recovered and a spokesman for Wright said he was "relieved" the matter had been dealt with.

A 23-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of theft of a motor vehicle and is in custody at Croydon police station this morning.

Other celebrities who have suffered at the hands of car thieves include the 23-year-old glamour model Jordan who returned to her bungalow in Ruislip to find her Range Rover missing in November last year.

In December 2000, thieves broke into the Notting Hill home of Madonna and her then fiance Guy Ritchie while the couple and son Rocco were sleeping, stole the keys to the film director's black W-registration Range Rover and escaped in it.

In the same month former James Bond actor Roger Moore had his £70,000 silver Mercedes stolen from his garage in Monte Carlo but police over the Monaco border in Ventimiglia, Italy, spotted it parked in a street, traced it to the star and returned it.