FEARS have been raised that a pair of violent muggers are cruising the streets of South Woodford late at night targeting women, after two sisters were robbed at knifepoint.

Last week the Guardian reported on a mugging in Marlborough Road in which 41-year-old Julie Davis had her handbag stolen by a man in a balaclava who jumped out of a maroon hatchback.

After reading that story, another woman, Jodie Bevan, 32, contacted the Guardian to tell of us a terrifying attack which she was subjected to a week earlier.

Mrs Bevan and her sister were mugged on Derby Road in the early hours of October 28 after two men in an old maroon car screeched to a halt alongside them.

“I am convinced it is the same people who mugged the lady in your paper,” she said.

“I think the car was a Vauxhall Astra, it sounds the same.”

Mrs Bevan, who lives in Harlow, was on on her way back to her parents’ home in South Woodford with her sister after a drink in the Slug and Lettuce pub in George Lane at around 12.30am.

“A guy wearing a cloth mask over the bottom half of his face jumped out and came at me,” she said.

“He grabbed at my bag, but I resisted and he hit me in the face with the palm of his hand shouting ‘Don’t ****ing try it!”

While Mrs Bevan was trying to recover from the blow, the man lunged at her sister.

“He was shouting ‘Give me your ****ing phone!’,” she recalled.

“And then he shouted ‘I have a ****ing knife!’”

Despite his threats the women continued to struggle with their attacker while his accomplice waited in the car.

“He scratched my sister’s hand with the knife and we were struggling for a good three or four minutes, but in the end he got away,” she said.

“I saw the registration of the car as it drove off and I was shouting it out over and over again, but by the time we got on the phone to the police the panic had really set in and I had forgotten it.”

The muggers escaped with around £80 in cash as well the bags containing cash cards, drivers licenses and keys.

“I have changed all the locks on my doors because I am so scared,” said Mrs Bevan.

“It was horrible and I freak out every time someone knocks at my house.

“I won’t walk on my own at night either. I just can’t believe this happened in South Woodford.

“I grew up in the area and it was always so safe. I feel really traumatised by this.”

Redbridge Police have been asked to comment.