TWO friends and a young child were left stranded in the road for more than an hour, after a road rage thug threw their car keys into a ditch.

Susan Moyse and Sylvie Thompson had just left Morley Nurseries and were heading down Southend Road, Great Wakering, when a driver stopped his car in front of their vehicle, before launching abuse at them.

At around 2.30pm on Monday, Mrs Moyse, 60, from Hawkwell, was driving the car, which also had her three-year-old granddaughter in the back, when the man drove up behind her.

She said: “He was waving his hands and I thought he was going to overtake and just drive past.

“But he stopped his car all of a sudden, so I had to break quickly and stop.

“He got out of the car and came towards us, shouting abuse. He then pulled my car keys out, which broke them, and he threw them on to a field nearby.

“He said: ‘That will give you something to do for the afternoon.’”

Mrs Moyse added the experience was “frightening”. She said: “It was just two women and a child. We had to push my car out of the way.”

Mrs Thompson, 59, described the driver as white, in his mid to late thirties with “dreadlocks right down his back and really dirty clothes.”

She added: “He looked like he worked outdoors.”

Fortunately for the group, Mrs Moyse’s husband was able to travel from Basildon to meet them with a spare car key.

A police spokesman said they were investigating the incident.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at Southend on 101.