Child slept through Victorian car-jacking attempt

A Victorian mother has told of how she fought off a violent car-jacker as her daughter slept in her vehicle.

Police this evening released an image of the offender, who fled empty handed after attacking the woman on Saturday night.

Catherine, 43, was attacked by the car-jacker as she loaded up her BMW station wagon in Princes Hill.

She had just returned from attending her niece’s confirmation and had already strapped her four-year-old daughter into the vehicle.

“If he managed to get my keys, I knew he would take my car – my daughter was asleep in the car,” she said.

“He would take my daughter as well.”

Today she recounted her chilling exchange with the attacker as police appealed for any information about the attacker.

“He said to me “Give me your keys, I want your car”,” she said.

But the mother bravely challenged her attacker as he grappled with her.

“I did say to him “you can’t have my car, my daughter’s in the car”,” she said.

“He looked in the car but didn’t care.”

The struggled alerted passers-by and the robber fled the scene.

“To think of her waking up in a car, being driven by some strange guy and what could have happened,” Catherine said.

The incident was just one of two violent car-jackings in recent days.

A 21-year-old was allegedly held-up at gunpoint outside a St Albans milk bar last night.

A man has been charged with armed robbery over that incident.