'˜Hero' chased down bag snatcher

Soficul Choudhury, 34, from Mansfield, was picking up his daughter from pre school on Tuesday, February 20, at around 4.30pm when a fellow parent had her handbag snatched by a man on a bike.

Jumping into action Soficul followed the man in his car, tracking him down, and managing to retrieve the bag and returning it to its rightful owner.

Soficul said: “I went to pick my daughter up from pre school, Little Cherubs, with my wife and I saw another parent picking up her son who is in the same class as my daughter.

“She was struggling to her son in the her car and he was distressed and crying.

“My wife got out the car to go into the school to get our daughter and I stayed in the car and then I heard a scream and my wife shouted to me that a man had gone off with the woman’s handbag.

“The woman was in hysterics.

“I jumped out the car bur my wife shouted at me to get back in the car. I quickly reversed out of the space and chased him down the street but I lost him.

“So I headed towards the post office and Farm Foods near Oak Tree Lane as I had a feeling he might be around there and I found him.

“I couldn’t see the handbag and he was on the pavement so I pulled up beside him and wound the window down and I was shouting for him to give the bag back.

“I didn’t know what to do so I zoomed past him and got out the car and ran towards him. He pulled the bag out of his coat and threw it away from him and all the contents went everywhere.

“I grabbed the bag and he rode off. My thought was, I had got the bag back and I didn’t know if he had something on him so I didn’t want to approach him.

“I put everything back in the bag. I had to stop traffic and people were asking me what had happened so I told them someone had stolen a ladies bag.

“Then I drove back to the school. The lady was still distressed and was crying and I turned up with the handbag.

“Everyone was congratulating me but I was trying to not get a big head about it. I was like, ‘don’t worry about it’.

“And then people from the school were coming out and calling me a hero.

“I would hope anyone would also do the same thing. I just thought that my wife picks our daughter up from school and it could have happened to her.”

The Chad have asked the police to confirm the incident and are awaiting a response.