A brave woman tried to put up a fight with a carjacker who ripped the keys for her BMW from her hands and drove off seconds after she had returned from work.
Elaine Roscoe, 54, had only just parked outside her Moston home in Manchester when she was forced to wrestle with a robber for the keys to her BMW m235i.
Dramatic CCTV footage shows the moment the accounts assistant pulled onto the drive on Wednesday, December 29, before two figures run over to her, brazenly rip the keys from her hands and make off in the vehicle.
She told the Manchester Evening News : "You see it in the news, all over social media, but when it happens to you it's surreal.
"You see it happening to other people and you think 'I would do this or that', but you react how you react.
"It's horrible. It's shocked me, it's angered me. I think it's every emotion you can think of.
"You don't come home and think 'who will carjack me?'."
It had been an otherwise normal day for Elaine who left the office on time just after 5pm and arrived home from work around 30 minutes later.
But as she gathered some documents and her bag from her passenger seat, she could tell something wasn't right.
She said: "I heard these feet running. I looked up and there was a lad shouting 'give me the key, give me the key'.
"I've never experienced anything like it in my whole life - it was a bit of a shock. I didn't take it all in straight away.
"He ran at me, and then we're basically fighting over this car key. I've worked hard for what I have ever since I left school - there was no way I was letting this key go.
"It was only seconds but it felt like minutes."
Having only had the car for seven months determined Elaine held on to her keys as long as she could, but as one man tried to take them from her, she noticed a second offender approaching her.
Eventually, the first man managed to rip them from her hands and jumped in before driving off.
But their escape was short-lived as Elaine quickly dialled 999 and was able to locate her car using an app linked to the vehicle tracking device.
Neighbours rushed to help and police arrived shortly after.
The carjackers had already managed to rip out the car's tracking device, but not before quick-thinking Elaine had found her BMW dumped less than a mile away from her home.
She said: "I've been told that they usually move the car and the last place it is tracked is where they have ripped it out, then you have no idea where it is.
"But luckily we were too quick for them."
After the incident, Elaine was shown CCTV from a neighbour who saw the offenders following behind her BMW in a grey Fiat Punto.
As the carjacker made off in her BMW, a grey Fiat Punto was seen following after it.
Now she is waiting for her car to undergo some repairs but police are appealing for information to find the offenders.
Anyone with information about the incident can contact Greater Manchester Police online or by calling 101, quoting log number 2220 of December 29, 2021.
