Block attack driver tells of blood-soaked wife

Steve and Carol Manley were driving home after visiting some friends when the missile was launched from a bridge on the A12 in Essex, leaving Mrs Manley with fractures to her face and ribs, and internal injuries.

He said: “My wife was covered in blood. There was a concrete block on her chest and leg.”

Mr Manley said his 57-year-old wife had only recently left hospital following an operation on her stomach, where the concrete block landed.

He told reporters: “The concerns that were running through my mind were that my wife couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, there was blood pouring from her face. I was concerned because she had an operation on a spinal injury about two or three years ago.

“Only recently (she had) come out of hospital from having an operation on her stomach and the concrete block was on the stomach so you can understand I was in no state to know anything or do anything.”

The block hit their vehicle at 10.05pm last Thursday. Mr Manley escaped with minor cuts and bruises.

His wife is now recovering from her ordeal at Broomfield Hospital, in Chelmsford, Essex.

The pair were hit just 40 minutes after mother-of-two Lisa Horne, 26, escaped unharmed when a rock the size of a football smashed on to her windscreen.

The 26-year-old was driving under another bridge with her 48-year-old mother Stella on the same road when their Vauxhall Astra was struck.

Mr Manley said: “Physically she’s going to get better, mentally we’re going to worry about the scars in the future when they come up. All I can say on that one is, God-willing she won’t suffer any scars.”

Mr Manley fears that the two attacks – which are both being treated as attempted murder – could spark a “craze of stupidity”.