Handbrake puts brake on Brisbane car thief

A man armed with a knife who tried to steal a car from a Brisbane home has fled without the vehicle after he had trouble releasing the handbrake.

Police say the man entered an Eight Mile Plains home early on Wednesday morning and demanded two residents give him the keys to a car that was parked outside.

When he couldn't release the handbrake, he returned and smashed a window of the home, leaving one residents with minor facial injuries, and fled in the car he had driven to the scene.