'Car-jacker' uses threat of HIV-blood injection

A robber hijacked a car in the early hours of yesterday and told the driver and his wife he would inject them with a syringe of HIV-infected blood unless they withdrew £1,000 from a cash machine.

A robber hijacked a car in the early hours of yesterday and told the driver and his wife he would inject them with a syringe of HIV-infected blood unless they withdrew £1,000 from a cash machine.

The knife-wielding attacker climbed into the rear of the Mercedes four-wheel-drive shortly after midnight when it stopped at traffic lights on a slip road on the M5 at Taunton, Somerset. The man told the couple he would inject themunless they drove to a cash machine at a Tesco supermarket in Exeter, 20 miles away.

The victims, who were returning to their home in Dorset from Bristol, were found two hours later trying to break into the store to alert staff after they had escaped the attacker and he had driven off in their car without any money. The vehicle was later found burnt out and abandoned in Telegraph Hill, 10 miles from Exeter.

A 38-year-old man and 37-year-old woman from Newton Abbot, near Exeter, were being questioned about the attack last night. Police said it might be linked to other "car-jackings" in the West Country.