Car thief drives off with Irishwoman’s baby son
The thief drove off with the child as the woman was loading her shopping into the boot of her 4x4 at a supermarket in the Costa del Sol resort of Benalmadena.
Police pursued the thief after a witness phoned the emergency services as the anguished mum screamed her son had been abducted.
The chase ended with the culprit being cornered in a cul-de-sac and the youngster being returned safe and well to his mother.
The scare happened around 5pm on Saturday as the woman put her shopping into the boot of her Audi Q7 in the supermarket car park.
She had already put her one-year-old son into his car seat and is thought to have left the key in the ignition and the engine running so the vehicle’s air conditioning would kick in.
The opportunist thief jumped into the vehicle and sped off as she loaded the last of the bags into the car.
Several patrol cars were mobilised and the offender caught minutes later after mistakenly racing into a cul-de-sac and being cornered. He was arrested after hiding under the vehicle.
It was not clear last night whether he knew a child was in the back of the car when he stole it.
A police source said: “Fortunately the youngster was unharmed.
“We reunited him with his mum, who was understandably in a state of total and utter panic. It must have been a terrifying experience for her but luckily one with a happy ending.”
A 21-year-old Romanian is being quizzed by police.
The suspect is expected to be handed over to an investigating magistrate once he has been questioned by police.
The theft is the second of its kind within a week in the area.
A 42-year-old car thief attempted to drive off with a woman’s car as she sat at traffic lights in nearby Malaga on Monday, with her child in the back seat.
Two good samaritans who were in a van behind her frustrated the attempt and restrained the thief until police arrived to arrest him.
