Car park assault suspect charged

POLICE yesterday charged a man with the attempted murder of Dorrie Thompson, a 46-year-old voluntary church worker, who was beaten with a baseball bat in a Sainsbury car park last Friday.

Mark Wilton Henry, 25, of Charteris Road, Kilburn, north-west London, was also charged with threatening to kill another 46-year-old woman as she returned to her BMW in a Waitrose car park in East Sheen, south-west London last Thursday.

The charges came as Mrs Thompson, of Victoria, central London, emerged from a coma at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in central London, where she is in intensive care with a fractured skull.

Mrs Thompson, a mother of three, was attacked at a Sainsbury store in Nine Elms, south London, as she loaded food for a church barbecue into the boot of her BMW.

After two operations to remove blood clots from her brain, she was yesterday described by Scotland Yard as 'critical but stable'.

Yesterday, the supermarket chains refused to say whether security measures were in place to protect customers in their car parks. A Sainsbury spokesman said: 'The company's policy is that we don't discuss security arrangements. But we were absolutely shocked by this incident.'

A Safeway spokeswoman said the company took security extremely seriously, although it would not discuss what measures it took . She added: 'The company continually reviews security procedures.'

Waitrose would not disclose what measures, if any, were in operation in its car parks, while Marks and Spencer said in its stores which provided parking, closed-circuit television was in operation and security guards on patrol. A spokesman said: 'We spend pounds 6m a year on security guards.'

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