Chilling moment victims are doused with corrosive liquid in ‘targeted’ attack that left 12 injured: Mother, 31, and daughter, three, suffer ‘life changing injuries’ and eight-year-old is hurt – as hunt continues for ‘dangerous’ suspect

A suspected chemical attacker remains on the run today  after leaving a young mother and her three-year-old girl daughter with ‘life-changing injuries’ in a ‘targeted’ attack that injured 10 others including her second daughter, eight. 

The 31-year-old woman – who police say was known to her assailant – screamed ‘I can’t see, I can’t see’ after being doused with an alkaline substance at 7.25pm last night on Lessar Avenue, next to Clapham Common in south London. 

The mother and daughters remain in hospital. Three women – two in their 30s and one in her 50s – were treated for burns after trying to intervene, as were five police officers. All have now been discharged. A man in his 50s was treated at the scene.

Shocking CCTV emerged today showing the attacker getting into a car as the mother and one of her daughters stand in front of it holding their hands on their faces. He drives the car at the woman and hits her before getting out. 

He then opens the back door and violently throws the second daughter onto the ground ‘like he was in a wrestling ring’. At some point he threw an alkaline substance at the girls and their mother, causing her skin to ‘turn black’, according to witnesses. 

A major manhunt is now under way for the ‘dangerous’ suspect involving a large number of officers.

Bus driver Shannon Christi, 35, said she heard a bang and someone shouting for help in the street outside her flat. She told MailOnline: ‘I ran outside and saw this guy picking a little girl up and throwing her on the floor again and again.

‘I then saw the mum walking down the street shouting ”I can’t see, I can’t see”,’ she said. ‘So I called my partner to get some water. Staff at the hospital then came round to help and started dousing her in water.’ 

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Ms Christi said she then felt her own skin ‘starting to tingle’. 

‘Me and the little girl went into the block to wash our eyes and faces with water,’ she said. 

‘I think what happened was she got it on her jacket when she fell on the floor and then it transferred it to me.’

The bus driver said staff took the toddler into the Clapham South Belvedere Hotel before going to wash her own arms and face. The attacker tried to escape in the car but crashed into a stationary vehicle before making off on foot. 

‘The man, who was dressed all in black, ran straight towards Balham and my partner chased him but he was wearing slippers,’ Ms Christi said. ‘I couldn’t really focus as I was looking after the girl, who just kept crying.’ 

One woman, who did not want to be named, said she saw the man lift a child above his head and smash them onto the floor twice.

‘I heard the noise from outside, the screaming so I went to my window and saw a women screaming ‘help help’,’ she said. ‘I saw a child in the back of the car banging so I took my phone to call the police’.

She said that after a few minutes she saw the man open the car door and take a young child out of their seat.

‘He took the child from the seat and lifted him above his head and smashed him on the floor then he picked him up from the floor and did it again’.

Another woman, who did not want to be named, said she saw the children screaming ‘my mum, my mum’ as they were carried to the hotel by local residents.   

The mother and her children were first taken to the Belvedere Hotel last night where residents at the property said they were doused by police and ambulance staff. 

One woman told MailOnline she saw a child with a burn mark under her eye while another man, also staying at the hotel, said he heard screams while the woman was taken to the toilets by staff. 

Photos show a white Hyundai i20 hatchback with its doors open and windscreen shattered abandoned on the street, where homes sell for as much as £3million.

A member of the local resident’s association believes the woman was living at the Belvedere Hotel.

‘As I understand it, it was a domestic situation,’ said the local woman, who did not wish to be named. ‘She was a resident at the hotel.’ 

Superintendent Gabriel Cameron, a senior officer in Lambeth, said: ‘We believe the man and woman are known to each other.

‘Our investigation is in its early stages and we are working to establish why this awful incident has happened.

‘Officers from across the Met are working with partner agencies and forces to locate and arrest the man.

‘While this appears to be a targeted attack, he is a dangerous individual and we urgently need to find him.

‘We will release more information about him as soon as we can.’

The Met praised the efforts of the public for coming to the aid of the family injured in the attack.

Mr Cameron said: ‘All these members of the public and my officers deserve enormous recognition and praise for coming to the aid of this woman and children in what must have been a terrifying scenario.

‘We will provide them with all the support we can.

‘I also want to commend nearby hotel staff after victims and officers sought refuge and water there following the incident.’ 

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said a manhunt involving a ‘big team’ of police officers is now underway.

‘It’s understandable that it’s frightening,’ he told BBC News. 

‘Fortunately, attacks using acid and chemicals are exceedingly rare. We did have a spate of them two or three years ago, you might remember.

‘It’s not something we’ve seen much of at all recently, I’m pleased to say.

‘This is a ghastly attack, and the first thing to say is we have a live manhunt.

‘The suspected offender we believe was known to the victims and so we have a big team of officers, (including) the local officers who dealt with it assisted by colleagues.

‘We are hunting for him as we speak.’

Sir Mark paid tribute to the bravery of members of the public and police.

‘Four members of the public got involved, three women and a man, and three of them have had hospital treatment and been discharged,’ he said. 

‘I have four or five officers who got involved as well and have had to go to hospital and get checked out because of their contact with the chemical.’

He clarified that three members of the public went to hospital following the incident, as well as five police officers.

However, only the mother and her two young daughters remain in hospital, Sir Mark said. 

A police cordon has now been lifted with no officers at the scene. 

A clinical waste bag has been left strewn outside of the home in the leafy street, where properties sell for up to £3million. 

Meanwhile a section of the road on Lessar Avenue remains damp from where officers are thought to have washed down the area.

One woman who lives near the scene said she heard a ‘loud bang’ and when she came outside saw police.

‘I heard a loud bang,’ she told MailOnline. When I went out the house there were police everywhere and I couldn’t get out of my house at all.’

Another witness described the mother’s horrific injuries. 

‘Her lips were completely black,’ he told BBC Breakfast. ‘Her face look really burnt, like stripped off basically.’  

Forensics teams at the scene could be seen inspecting a coffee cup which may have been used to throw the alkaline substance.

Speaking from the scene in south London, Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy said: ‘We know a woman and her two children are still in hospital having been attacked with corrosive substance, and we know that whilst the injuries they sustained aren’t life threatening they could be life changing – we’re waiting for more updates from the hospital and obviously our thoughts and prayers and concerns are with all of them.’

She said members of the public and police who assisted the family and were affected by the substance are ‘all fine’, and emergency services have ‘gone to great lengths’ to wash the substance from the residential road.

‘Police are engaged in an active manhunt at the moment, it seems the individual was known to the woman and children that were attacked, so we don’t think that any random attacks are happening and we want to assure people in the local area that they are perfectly safe.

‘This was a horrible and quite specific attack. I think it was very brave of all those who were on the scene to immediately come to their aid, running into different properties to get water.’

The Belvedere Hotel said in a statement: ‘Staff have provided assistance to the guests affected and sought to reassure other hotel guests as to their safety and wellbeing.

‘The staff team will continue to provide assistance to guests and the police going forward. As this is an ongoing police investigation, we are not able to provide any further comment.’  

Police in England and Wales recorded 472 violent and robbery offences involving a corrosive substance in the year to March 2023, the latest available figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

There were 525 recorded in the previous 12-month period.

The data is published annually and only dates back to March 2020, when current records began.

The Home Office started collecting data on some offences involving corrosive substances from April 2019 as part of a government pledge to tackle such attacks.

The figures to March 2023 exclude any reports that may have been made to Devon and Cornwall Police because the force has been unable to supply data due to problems with a new computer system.