Thieves knock out British family by gassing them in their camper van

French thieves knocked out a British family by gassing them as they slept in their camper van before stealing £1,500 worth of goods.

Perry Hudson, Kim Heighway and their three children, from Redditch, Worcestershire, were robbed at a service station in Antran.

As the family tried to get a good night’s rest before their final journey home on the ferry, a group of burglars pumped gas through the air vents, reports the Sun.

The crooks made off with the family-of-five’s passports, their wallets and a designer handbag.

Mr Hudson told the Sun: ‘The scariest thing is that they must have been so close to us and the children.

‘It was quite a small van, so they would have been practically nose-to-nose with my daughter when they opened the door.’

Police spotted the burglars climbing over a fence from some woods nearby.

Their children – Olivia, 15, Jacob, 12, and Charlie, 10 – have been left shaken by the terrifying incident which came at the end of a tour around Spain and France.

Ms Heighway added: ‘They could have sliced our necks with a flick of their wrists if they’d wanted to.’ 

Back in 2018, former Top Gear host Richard Hammond and his wife Mindy were gassed before being burgled as they slept in their Saint Tropez villa.

Hammond, Mindy, and 15 other guests were targeted by raiders who used anesthetic gas to knock them out before rifling through rooms for cash and jewellery.

At the time, she revealed that she almost walked in on the burglars after hearing a noise in the hallway – but instead turned away after assuming it was another couple in the villa.