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.
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