London Evening Standard/London
Police are hunting a knifeman who stabbed a 79-year-old motorist to death in a suspected road rage attack after their cars crashed on a country road.
The suspect is said to have got out of his car and knifed the other driver after a “minor shunt” near the village of Findon in West Sussex on Thursday night. Paramedics and a doctor from the air ambulance service treated the pensioner at the scene but he died at the roadside.
Police yesterday appealed for witnesses to the attack, outside a garden centre on the A24 at 8.40pm, saying the road would have been busy at the time.
The suspect, who was driving a pale-coloured “old-style” vehicle, described in some reports as a classic car, is described as white and aged between 30 and 40. He is about 6 ft tall with shoulder-length brown wavy hair and a “thin face”.
Sussex Police said both men left their cars and the suspect, who was driving the car in front, knifed the other driver before driving off. The victim was alone in his car. A police source said: “We believe the car behind bumped into the one in front and gave it a minor, rear-end shunt.
“Both men got out and the driver of the front car attacked the bloke in the second. He was stabbed more than once.”
The incident took place on a dual carriageway of a bypass around Findon, a village in the South Downs National Park a few miles north of Worthing. Police closed the road around the scene outside Rogers Farm garden centre. The incident echoes the case of notorious criminal Kenneth Noye, who was jailed for life for the murder of 21-year-old Stephen Cameron on an M25 slip road at Swanley in Kent in 1996.
Detective chief inspector Karen Mizzi, of the Surrey and Sussex major crime team, said: “Officers have been urgently making inquiries to trace the suspect. We need to hear from witnesses who saw the collision, the suspect or the car involved, particularly if anyone filmed the incident or saw anyone filming it.”
Sarah Hand, a Worthing resident, said on Facebook: “There just after it had happened. That poor man.” Local councillor Clive Ball said the location of the attack on a busy bypass near a commuter village meant the attacker may not be local.
He told the Mirror: “Findon is a small village on the outskirts of Worthing and it’s not far from London so there’s really no telling who the individuals involved were.”
AA president Edmund King said: “This is a horrific and tragic incident and our thoughts are with the victim’s family. Thankfully such brutal ‘road rage’ attacks are generally a rare occurrence on our highways in the UK.”
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