A thief got more than he bargained for when he hijacked a car - a passenger was still sitting inside.

Disabled pensioner Marjorie Walker was in her husband, Clifford's, car in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, when a youth suddenly leapt into the driver's seat, and drove off. A similar incident happened only days earlier in the area.

"It was horrendous," said Mrs Walker, of Hewley Drive, West Ayton. "All I could think was how I was going to cope and what I was going to do."

The couple had parked outside Costcutter, in North Marine Road, and Mr Walker had gone to buy a paper and some milk, leaving the keys in the ignition.

"The next thing I knew, this youth got into the car, revved it up and we went off. I tried to get out, but couldn't," said Mrs Walker.

"He was away before I could get the seatbelt off."

She pleaded with the driver to be let out and he turned down a side street where she got out of the Mitsubishi Space Star in a "trembling heap".

Mrs Walker said: "It was only a few moments, but it felt like hours to me. My husband normally takes the keys out and locks the car, but because I was inside and he was only going to be a minute or two, he left them."

She made her way back to the shop where her shocked husband was waiting.

"A lady came into the shop and told me about the car," he said. "I shot outside. It had gone and so had my wife.

"I was absolutely horrified. I was worried about what was going to happen to her. She cannot walk very far and I was surprised she managed to get back."

Days previously, another woman was driven off in her family's car in daylight.

The car had been parked outside the Iceland store in the main shopping area of Westborough, Scarborough, when it was taken and the woman was ordered to get out of the car half a mile away in Castle Road.

Two people are being questioned in connection with the incidents.