A father drove two teenagers to safety when a armed man on a motorbike threatened to “cut them up and kill them”.

The man, who asked not to be named, said he was waiting for his son in Straight Road, Harold Hill, at about midnight on Saturday when the boys aged about 18 dove into the back of his car.

He said: “I was just sitting there waiting to pick my boy up and this motorbike came past.

“It went past a few times then stopped on the other side of the road, facing me.

“Two young 18-year-olds jumped in my car and said ‘that bloke is going to kill us, he’s got a knife and he’s been chasing us for 15 minutes’. ‘He’s trying to run us over and stab us’.”

It’s alleged that the man on the motorbike then demanded the teenagers leave the car.

“He was shouting at me to tell them to get out saying he was going to cut them up and kill them,” the father said.

“I said ‘what’s your problem’ and he said ‘I’m warning you they better get out now’ and I said ‘they are not getting out’.”

They then drove towards Gallows Corner with the motorbike in pursuit.

The man said: “We got to Gallows Corner and he came fully up alongside me again shouting ‘get out, get out!’. Then the police started to come. As he saw them he just dashed out and drove off with the police chasing him.”

Police have confirmed that they were called to Straight Road at 12.45am on Sunday. They had received a number of reports relating to a man on a motorbike, with a weapon. Some of the callers said he had a firearm in his possession.

Officers pursued the man down the A12, but the bike was later found abandoned close to the north circular in Forest Gate.

The witness the Recorder spoke to said he had heard that the motorbike rider had been chasing other people that night.

No arrests have been made and Havering CID officers are investigating.