Linda Nicholls had enough to worry about when she took her wheelchair-bound father to visit her seriously ill mother in hospital -- without having to watch a thief steal her car.

Miss Nicholls, 53, of Almond Avenue, Kidlington, drove to Kent to take her 90-year-old father Robert Duncan to see her mother Florence, 89, who has cancer of the oesophagus, at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough, near Orpington.

After the visit, Miss Nicholls left her father at the hospital entrance while she collected her silver Saab from the car park. But as she helped her father out of his wheelchair, a man jumped into the car and drove off.

The freelance shorthand writer said: "I can't explain how I feel about it, what happened was just so sick and it's particularly sick to steal a car from outside a hospital where people are very poorly. I'm completely devastated.

"This thief was obviously waiting to pounce and picked on me because I was an easy target."

Miss Nichols' wallet, with £300 in cash and credit cards, was also in the car when it was taken. One of the credit cards was later used by the thief.

Hospital security staff saw the incident on CCTV but were unable to react in time. Miss Nicholls' partner Gary Ayers had to drive from Kidlington to Farnborough to take her home.

She said the incident, which took place at 4.15pm on Monday, October 24, had left her nervous and she now feared she may not be able to go back to a hospital again.

Miss Nicholls said she did not see much of the man who stole her car, because her back was to the vehicle, but he is described as of Asian appearance, aged between 30 and 40 and dressed in black.

Jamie Ford, spokesman for Bromley Hospital NHS Trust, said: "This was a very unfortunate and regrettable incident. We do have security measures in the car park and the area is well lit.

"We will be reviewing what we have currently got, but something like this has never happened in the car park before."