POLICE have been given extra time to continue questioning a man arrested in connection with two armed robberies and kidnapping in the New Forest.

Major crime detectives now have until Sunday morning to quiz the 44-year-old man from Lymington.

He was arrested on Thursday by detectives investigating armed raids at Brockenhurst on December 5 and Lymington on December 14.

He was the third person to be arrested after a 48-year-old from Lymington and a 44-year-old from New Milton.

They have been released on police bail after they were arrested last Sunday.

Yesterday, the Daily Echo spoke exclusively to one of the gunman’s victims – 64-year-old Janice, who was kidnapped by the crazed man who had attacked her 70-year-old husband in their Lymington home.

She spoke of the dramatic ordeal which saw the man brazenly walk up to her on her driveway in Rookes Lane and put a gun to her temple.

She said: “It didn’t take long to realise he had a gun against my head and I just said to him ‘look, I don’t have time for this, I’ve got a busy day with lots to do’. I was angry.”

He went on to steal £100 before kidnapping the woman and holding her hostage in her own car, before taking her back and fleeing in her Peugeot 207, which he abandoned in a nearby road.

This was the second incident in just eight days – after the gunman struck around 6.30am at Brockenhurst railway station when he kidnapped the driver of a Porsche as he parked up in the station car park.

He then ordered him back into his car and drove off, eventually taking him to the HSBC bank in a nearby village and demanding he withdraw a significant amount of money.

He then dumped the man in a remote car park in Rhinefield Road and left the Porsche a couple of miles away near a track and railway bridge just outside Sway.

Hampshire police are now also liaising with colleagues in Dorset over whether a gunman who held up a post office in Highcliffe on Tuesday could also be their man.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Operation Prenton team on 101.