Broadcaster Selina Scott tells how she was attacked and robbed in broad daylight outside bookshop

The former ITN News At Ten anchor, 74, said she was struck on the back of her knee when leaving a Waterstones store in Piccadilly in Central London on Tuesday afternoon.

Ms Scott said she felt like she had been stabbed because of the pain.

The broadcaster claimed around seven or eight men and women “dressed in expensive sportswear” turned on her in the attack, which saw her purse stolen. It held cash, her cards and her driving license.

Writing in the Daily Mail about her experience, Ms Scott said: “My heart dropped. I felt sick. Furious, too – the victim of targeted and well-rehearsed attack. Had the jab to the back of my leg meant to floor or distract me?

“Either way, suddenly alone in the centre of a city I no longer recognised, I couldn’t have felt more vulnerable.”

Ms Scott said the incident happened “right by a busy bus stop”, but said no one would have known what was going on, describing the alleged attack as “slick, brief and clearly engineered to happen in the middle of a crowd.”

The former presenter talks about crime rates in the city and an apparent lack of police officers in the busy streets of London.

She goes on to vent her frustration in “the bureaucratic hurdle” of reporting such incidents to the police.

“No wonder opportunistic crimes like these are on the rise when bobbies have all but abandoned their beats,” Ms Scott said.

“Giving up, I headed home, walking the three miles to my flat in Kensington because I had no cards with which to pay for a bus or taxi.

“Dazed and shattered, and with the pain in my leg only growing, I took a breather in Hyde Park to register the crime on my phone using the Met’s online form.

“The next day I received a call to say that officers from Hammersmith police station would come to take a statement from me at 8am the following morning.

“But at the time they were due to arrive, they rang to say they couldn’t come because they couldn’t find an available police car.

“Really? The station is barely a half-hour walk away. Disappointed, I had to make do with discussing it over the phone with the officer instead. Such muggings were, he said, ‘rife’ in the capital at the moment.”

A Met Police spokesperson told the publication: “While we understand that the victim was frustrated that she couldn’t see any police officers on the street, a significant number of officers patrol the West End every day – not just in uniform on foot, but also in plain clothes and in vehicles to have the best opportunity to identify and apprehend suspects.”