Two people held after boy's abduction

Detectives were questioning two people yesterday after a weekend rampage of violent crime in which a taxi driver was stabbed and a six-year-old boy abducted at knife point.

A man aged 56 and a 25-year-old woman were arrested on Saturday after police used a spiked Stinger tyre deflation system to stop a stolen taxi and rescue the child.

During the chase across Hampshire and Wiltshire, a policeman was threatened with a knife and a dog was killed

The taxi driver told police that he was hijacked at knife-point after collecting a couple from the White Hart pub near Petersfield, Hampshire. They forced him to drive to Salisbury in Wiltshire, where he was stabbed as he tried to push them from his white Renault taxi. The couple dumped him at Salisbury railway station and stole the car.

About 30 minutes later, the car was spotted by a police patrol car near Shipton Bellinger, on the Wiltshire-Hampshire border, where police said PC Ted Reynolds was threatened with a knife.

The car then stopped in the village of Shipton Bellinger where a woman was approached at her home. When she refused to open her door, her pet cocker spaniel was stabbed to death in front of her.

The car then stopped outside the Boot pub in the village and took the six-year-old boy, who was playing outside with hisbrother. The pub landlord said the boys were playing on their bikes when the younger brother was snatched at knife point.

Lee Turland, 34, said he and the boys' father joined the police car chase, which ended almost 15 miles away near the entrance to the Savernake Forest, near Marlborough.

"It was horrendous," said Mr Turland. "You don't expect something so awful to happen in a rural English village like ours."

The boy was taken to hospital for a check-up and last night was with his parents at a friend's home, still shocked and talking about "the woman with a knife".