A GIRL aged 13 fought off a thug who tried to steal her family’s car as they waited at traffic lights.

The man opened a passenger door of the Ford C-Max when it had stopped in Cherrydown East, Basildon.

He tried to drag the girl out but she grappled with him, shoved him out of the car and slammed the door.

Lyndsey Jordan, 38, was in the Ford with her husband Robert, 40, her disabled son, five, and her daughter, 13, when the drama unfolded on Friday at 10.30am.

She said: “I don’t know how she did it, but she managed to fight him off. She was so strong.

“We were all just screaming it happened so quickly.

“The next thing my daughter managed to slam the door and my husband put his foot down.

“As we looked in the rear view mirror we saw him jump in to the passenger door of the brown van waiting behind us in the traffic.”

The car-jacker got into what is believed to be a UPS delivery van.

Mrs Jordan, of Whitmore Way, Basildon, later contacted UPS and spoke to a manager who assured her they would telephone all drivers to make sure they are OK.

Mrs Jordan said it looked like the car-jacker was running away from someone.

She said: “We drove straight to Basildon police station and reported what had happened.

“We were just all in shock.

My son is disabled and he is just so upset.

“I just worry what the man was going to do. Was he planning to pull my daughter out and force us to drive him somewhere?

“It was so awful. I am just sitting here in shock, thinking to myself: ‘What the hell happened?’”

The car-jacker was black, dressed in black trousers, a black hooded top and black trainers with distinctive luminous orange soles.

Mrs Jordan remembers seeing a woman with a pram near to the junction where the incident happened, and some builders.

Anyone with information can call Basildon police on 101.