Pregnant teacher tells of terror after her £13k BMW was stolen by men posing as police in south-east London

A pregnant teacher today told of her terror after her car was flagged down and stolen by bogus traffic police.

The 33-year-old newlywed was driving her white BMW 520 to a hospital check-up when she was pulled over in Eltham by two men in a black BMW 4x4 with flashing blue lights in the windscreen.

A white man in his thirties got out, identified himself as a police officer and told her to roll down her window.

Flashing a wallet with a fake ID card, he said: “You were driving a bit fast weren’t you?”

He suggested to the teacher, who is four months pregnant, that he could smell alcohol on her breath, and asked her to step out of her £13,000 car.

He asked her to wait at the roadside while he went to switch off the engine, but jumped into the driver’s seat and sped away — swiftly followed by his accomplice in the black 4x4.

She told the Standard: “I was thinking about what I had done wrong? I’m pregnant and it was 7am so knew I hadn’t been drinking.

“It was dark, he had a collared shirt, a lanyard and flashed this wallet. I’m not stupid. I think I’m quite street savvy, but he was very calm, and was convincing enough to get me out of my car.

“As soon as I got on the curb I realised the other person didn’t look right. He never got out.

“It was dark, there was no one around. I couldn’t do anything to stop them. They had all my belongings, so I couldn’t phone anyone.”

She knocked on the doors of nearby houses and a resident dialled 999.

She added: “I feel stupid and vulnerable. My head says they could’ve hurt me or my unborn baby. It’s obviously orchestrated, and if it happened to me it could happen to anyone.”

The woman’s handbag was dumped in Blackheath, where it was picked up by a passer-by who found her ID card and contacted her school.

Her husband went through credit card records and found it had been used to buy cigarettes at an off-licence in Charlton.

The shop owner pulled up CCTV of the transaction and the victim recognised the suspect.

Her phone was found and taken into a local school and charged, where it was located by a tracker app.

The vehicle, registration WL62 KEU, has yet to be recovered.

Official advice is that police community support officers must be in uniform when they stop and question people.

There have been no arrests over the incident at 7am on Thursday.

A police spokesman said the suspect who took the car was white, aged 30 to 35, slim-built with close-cropped dark brown hair and facial stubble. The other man was also white, aged 30 to 35.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 101 or via Twitter @MetCC, quoting CAD 1098/17JAN, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at crimestoppers-uk.org