A thief terrified a woman by climbing into her car at a supermarket and stealing her handbag.

Tina Wilson, 48, was putting her shopping on the passenger seat of her Ford Mondeo when the man got in beside her and threatened her at the Morrison's supermarket car park at the Victoria Shopping Centre in Girlington, Brad-ford.

At first Mrs Wilson thought it was someone she knew. But then he started to throw her shopping around and wave his arms, terrifying her.

"He took my handbag, got out of the car, got into another car and drove off," she said. "I was running after him and screaming my head off. Then I realised that I couldn't catch the car."

Left without a telephone and any contact numbers, Mrs Wilson, a manager of Curves Gym in Beckside Road, Bradford, said she was in shock and close to fainting. She praised Morrisons' staff for calming her down and helping her.

"He took off with everything of importance with him - my driver's licence, my debit and credit cards, my chequebook, even my bills," she said.

Mrs Wilson, of Coronation Walk in Keighley, is warning women to think about their safety and security in car parks. "It has disabled me as a person and left me very, very wary," she said. "I want to make other people aware of how to look after themselves."

A Morrisons spokesman said: "We are very sorry to hear that a customer was the victim of such a crime in our car park. We would like to reassure customers that incidents of theft in our car parks are isolated. We have a number of security measures in place at the Victoria shopping centre, including a uniformed security guard, a plain-clothes security guard and CCTV."

The suspect is described as a slim male, 5ft 9ins tall, who wore a light-coloured jacket and a sandy-coloured baseball cap. He was driving a silver Vauxhall Vectra.

The incident occurred on Wednesday, November 2.

A West Yorkshire police spokesman said that they did not believe the incident was connected to any other attacks.

Anyone with information should contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.