Teen girl speaks out after knifepoint robbery (From Daily Echo)

Teen girl speaks out after knifepoint robbery

5:10pm Friday 6th November 2009 in News By Tara Russell, News Reporter

'Jade' and her mother

A TEENAGER has spoken for the first time of the moment she was dragged from a main road into a dark alleyway and robbed by a gang of thugs.

The 16-year-old revealed how she thought she would die as a weapon was held to her throat by three hooded and masked men who laughed as they carried out the vicious attack.

Now, the brave college student hopes to save other youngsters from the same fate by talking publicly about her horrific ordeal.

With tears rolling down her cheeks, the trainee hairdresser told the Daily Echo: “I was so scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. I was thinking I’m going to die.

I just didn’t know what to do.”

The girl, who the Daily Echo has agreed to call Jade, was making the ten-minute walk from the bus stop to her house along the well-lit Hampton Lane in Blackfield after a day at her college in Southampton.

One brazen attacker grabbed her on the busy main road at 5.45pm on Monday.

He put his hand across her mouth to silence her and held some sort of weapon against her throat before pulling her into the alleyway where his two accomplices were waiting.

One grabbed her hands behind her back ripping her coat while the other looked on and laughed.

and laughed.

When they finally let go of her hands to snatch her purse with £50 cash in, her mobile phone and hairdressing equipment, Jade, who is a brown belt in karate, fought for her life and elbowed her attacker, winding him.

One of the men kicked her in the stomach knocking her to her knees before another brutally pushed her so she flew face down on the concrete before the robbers ran off towards the main road.

Jade ran for help at the nearest shop where they called police and an ambulance.

She escaped with a bump on her head, bruises and cuts and scratches on her face and hands.

Clutching tightly onto her mother’s hand, Jade said: “I am lucky I wasn’t raped or killed. Since it has happened I haven’t been able to sleep. I hear his voice every single day and keep reliving it again and again and again. It is sick how three men need to pick on an innocent girl just so they can get fun out of it.”

Her assailants are described as white and aged between 20 and 35 years. They wore hoods and had scarves concealing most of their faces.

Jade, who sings in her local club every Saturday night and is a fan of swing star Michael Buble, is now petrified to leave her home alone and has to be picked up by her family everywhere she goes.

She added: “I just hope people who read this will be careful and not go out on their own or be aware.”

A police spokesman said: “This is an appalling attack on a young woman who has been emotionally traumatised by the incident.

“Attacks of this nature are very rare, particularly on a woman at this time of day when a lot of people would have been around.”

Call Det Con Lisa Poole at Lyndhurst police station on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.