Drivers targeted by brick throwing youths over A13, Rainham
Youths throwing bricks from a Rainham road bridge caused terror for drivers yesterday (November 18).
Police received two calls at around 4.40pm after bricks were thrown at cars from the bridge over the A13 near the Wennington Road turn-off.
The incidents have chilling echoes of a case in December last year when a Harold Hill grandmother suffered facial and rib fractures after concrete blocks were thrown on to her car from a bridge over the A12 on West Hanningfield Road, near Chelmsford.
One of the drivers whose car was targeted on Sunday was Jennifer Beales, from Dagenham.
The 35-year-old was driving home at 50mph from Corringham, Thurrock, having been watching her son at a football match.
She said: “I was on the way back towards a bridge and I saw two children standing on it.
“I could see them standing at the top, they threw something which missed the car then they threw another which landed on my bonnet, and then bounced up onto my windscreen right in front of the steering wheel.”
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“It was scary, and I’m really lucky it didn’t cause a much more serious accident.”
The youths targeted another car, which was not hit, about a minute later.
Police sent a helicopter and patrolled the area, but the two youths – aged 12-14 – were not found.
Jennifer waited at the side of the road for over an hour, calming herself down, before managing to drive home.
She said: “I’m so pleased they weren’t in the car with me or it would have been much worse.
“I just want to highlight it because the same thing happened not that long ago and nothing seems to have happened (to stop it).”
She added: “My children are about the same age as they were, but they wouldn’t dream of doing anything like that, it makes you wonder what their parents are doing.
“The kids don’t seem to understand the danger, or they just don’t care.”
Just three weeks ago Essex Police warned that they have historically seen an increase in such incidents between November and January, with the A12 a particular target.
On the same night in which 57-year-old Carol Manley was injured on December 1 last year, mother and daughter Lisa and Stella Horne escaped uninjured after a large rock was thrown from Fryerning Lane bridge in Ingatestone.
Anyone with information about the incidents should call the police on 101.
