Delivery van and cars left torched by thugs during spate of arson attacks in south London

 
Car destroyed: four cars were left burnt out after being torched in Torr Road and Evelina Road
Alexandra Rucki26 February 2015
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Thugs torched a delivery van and several cars during a spate of arson attacks in south London yesterday morning.

Firefighters were called to extinguish an Iceland truck parked outside the Blenheim Shopping Centre, in Penge High Street, shortly before 2am.

Within minutes fire crews were called to reports of vehicles and bins alight in surrounding roads.

Four cars were left burnt out after being torched, discovered by the London Fire Brigade in Torr Road and Evelina Road.

Terrified residents posted images of the destroyed vehicles with blacked out windows and melted bonnets.

LFB crews were called the same day at 3.45pm to reports of bins being set alight again outside the same shopping centre.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">The burnt-out Iceland lorry being carted away yesterday <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/penge?src=hash" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-91746-https://twitter.com/hashtag/penge?src=hash" data-vars-event-id="c23">#penge</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/arson?src=hash" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-91746-https://twitter.com/hashtag/arson?src=hash" data-vars-event-id="c23">#arson</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/seriouslygetalife?src=hash" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-91746-https://twitter.com/hashtag/seriouslygetalife?src=hash" data-vars-event-id="c23">#seriouslygetalife</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=9&amp;id=222025&amp;p=http://t.co/NSrekvJ5Vi" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-91746-http://t.co/NSrekvJ5Vi" data-vars-event-id="c23">pic.twitter.com/NSrekvJ5Vi</a>— Pennops (@pennops) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/pennops/status/570882128730320897" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-91746-https://twitter.com/pennops/status/570882128730320897" data-vars-event-id="c23">February 26, 2015</a>

Penelope Else, who lives in Penge, said: "Soon after 2am I was woken by my neighbour, telling me there was a car on fire outside.

"I thought he meant one of ours, at first, but it was an Iceland van about 15 yards away, in impressively full blaze. My neighbour had already called 999 so we stood and waited up on our terrace, a safe distance away.

"The fire brigade arrived soon after, and got spraying. It took a surprisingly long time to completely quench. I was already losing my voice from the smoke and fumes."

Twitter user David Bryher wrote: “Sigh. When you’re woken by a car literally exploding outside your house at 3am, you try to cope.”

A spokeswoman for the Met confirmed the fires are being treated as suspicious.

She said: “We were called at 2.36am to reports of multiple cars on fire in Penge.

“London Fire Brigade attended and dealt with the matter. We were alerted again to bins alight at Blenheim Shopping Centre.”

Police said no arrests have yet been made and enquiries continue.

Anyone with information can call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in