A "cool as a cucumber" husband leapt into action and calmly stopped a suspected thief after finding his car had been broken into in Abbey Wood.

Lawrence Robinson, 33, who is a runner, was leaving for work just before 6am this morning when he saw a man sat in his car.

The man ran off but Lawrence gave chase, tripped him up and reclaimed his wife’s GoPro camera.

After letting the alleged thief run off, Lawrence texted his wife requesting her to call him when she was awake, before going to work as usual.

“I am proud of him,” his wife Vanessa Robinson, 35, laughed. “It made me chuckle that he managed to catch him.

"But I said to him he totally shouldn’t have sprinted after him, you don’t know what he could have been carrying.”

The incident, which was captured on CCTV, happened in Bastion Road in Abbey Wood.

Vanessa added: “My husband is quite a quick runner. That is him – cool as a cucumber.

“We had a joke at our running club (Plumstead Runners) recently about how he is cool and never gets angry.”

Lawrence eventually informed police and sent over the CCTV after his wife persuaded him to do so.

The CCTV appears to show three men surrounding the car before Lawrence left the house.

A police spokesman said: "On Wednesday, 18 April, an attempted theft from a motor vehicle in Bastion Road, SE2 was reported to police.
The victim said he confronted two suspects."

No arrests have been made.