Man held woman at knifepoint in Stud Park Shopping Centre car park and forced her to buy laptops, drive with child in back seat

A knife-wielding man held a baby hostage in a car in a terrifying two hour ordeal where he forced the mother to go to electronics stores and buy him four laptops.

A mum who suffered through a terrifying hostage ordeal says she now finds it difficult to feel safe.

Primary schoolteacher Kieren, who asked not to have her surname used, was with her six-month-old baby in Rowville when a man approached her in the Stud Park Shopping Centre supermarket on May 10.

“He came from nowhere behind me with a knife and just said get in the car and drive and I just remember begging saying ‘I’ve got a daughter, you can have my car, my wallet and phone, just leave me with my daughter’,” Kieren said in an emotional press conference on Friday as police pleaded for information from the public.

“He just kept demanding ‘I don’t want that, just get in your car and drive’.”

Instead, he ordered her to drive to a number of electronics stores.

Primary schoolteacher Kieren was emotional as she recounted her terrifying ordeal. Picture: Nilsson Jones

“He kept telling me to stop crying and to just breathe and I obviously couldn’t, I wasn’t the best driver in those moments and I was feeling really sick and my daughter would not stop crying in the back seat,” she said tearfully.

“I ended up feeling really sick and we had to pull over so we ended up switching car spots so I could be in the back with my daughter and I got her to calm down.

“She ended up falling asleep and missed most of it which I am really grateful for.”

Forced to leave her baby in the car, Kieren was instructed to go into the Cranbourne Homemakers Centre where he demanded she purchase Apple MacBooks at several stores while her attacker remained in the vehicle.

“He promised that he wouldn’t drive away or hurt her,” Kieren said.

“I just hated leaving my daughter in the car but I made the guy promise not to leave and take her away. He promised and obviously it’s hard to believe him but I had to because I didn’t want her to be taken and he said it would not aid him in anyway to take her.

“I was so worried that in a panic he would drive away and take her while inside but he didn’t and I was really thankful for that.”

Sensing something was wrong, her husband used a location tracker on her iPhone to find out where she was and showed up at the shops.

“(He) tried to confront us and I just remember yelling at my husband that he had a knife and I just didn’t want him to get hurt,” Kieren said.

“My husband tried to save my daughter but he couldn’t because the door was locked and she was in the car seat, I had already run through the possibility of getting her out and running but car seats aren’t really designed for them to be taken out quickly.”

The knife-wielding man then drove to another store and ordered Kieren purchase a fourth MacBook.

Police believe this man may be able to assist with their inquiries. Picture: Victoria Police

After he’d received the computers, the man drove to the Robert Booth Reserve where he fled the car and escaped north along the Dandenong Creek path about 8pm.

“He said ‘okay that’s it, you can take your daughter home’, so I drove off but then I realised I could pull over and try to get some help,” Kieran said.

Pulling into a kebab shop, the mum pleaded for help.

“The owners were so confused, I was just a blubbering mess with my daughter but they were really nice and let me borrow their phone,” she said.

The teacher said she only remained calm because she’d received training on how to de-escalate situations while at school.

The man then fled towards the Dandenong Creek path about 8pm on May 10. Picture Victoria Police

Knox Crime Investigation Unit detective Senior Constable Jonathan Minehan said police were putting their full weight behind the investigation and had a large volume of CCTV footage to go through.

Sen Constable Minehan said it was “abhorrent” to put a young family through such a terrifying ordeal purely for financial gain.

While police believe it was an isolated incident, they have deployed additional patrols and resources to reassure the community.

The man, described as being of Asian descent and aged between 20 and 30, did not approach anyone else in the hour he spent in the car park before attacking Kieren.

There will be an information caravan at Stud Park on Friday evening to allow members of the public to come forward with additional information.

Anyone who witnessed or may have knowledge of the incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.