A MAN was threatened with a 10in knife during a carjacking in a Hampshire street, a court heard.

Jermaine Ford, 22, James Mamali, 20, and Richard Bonsu, 21, are accused of stealing the Mercedes E-Class Kompressor while the owner was parked in Winchester.

Mohammed Akter had driven to Thurmond Crescent, Stanmore, to visit a girl he had met on the Internet weeks previously, Winchester Crown Court was told.

He said that while talking to the girl through the car window, three of her male friends asked for a lift to Tesco. He refused and they attacked him.

Mr Akter, 35, a chauffeur from London, said: “I could see one of their hands coming towards the ignition key.

“The other two were trying to grab my hands. They were all punching me about the head and face.

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“As they were punching me they were trying to reach into my door to open it but I was trying to fight them off. As they opened the door one of them said that if I didn’t come out he would stab me. I saw a sharp blade.”

Prosecutor Michael Butt told the court the three men then jumped into the car and sped off. The girl and another female friend, who witnessed the assault, are then said to have walked off without speaking to Mr Akter.

Mr Akter called the police who were able to trace the vehicle to a car park at the Holiday Inn in Farnborough as it was fitted with a tracking device.

Mamali, who is alleged to have driven the car, escaped through a fire exit after police raided the hotel.

The court heard his fingerprints were found on the vehicle but he claimed he had bought it for £600 hours earlier and was driving it back to London. Ford and Bonsu were later picked out of a police identity parade by the victim.

Cross-examining, Katy Thorne, representing Bonsu, suggested the married father was acting inappropriately and had been grooming the teenager.

Denials Mr Akter denied that an argument had started because the three male friends of the teenager questioned his motives after he offered to give her a lift in his £30,000 car.

He also denied that he had told the teenager he was a music promoter who could get her backstage tickets to the O2 Arena in London.

But he admitted lying to police after the initial carjacking, telling them he had never met the girl before and that he had got lost in Winchester on April 5 last year.

Ford, of The Valley, Winchester and Mamali and Bonsu, of Chingford, Essex, all deny robbery.

Proceeding