Car torched after triple stabbing

Arsonists who waited outside an Essex hospital set fire to a car used to take the victims of a stabbing attack for treatment.

Three men, in their 20s and all believed to be from Grays in Essex, were stabbed during an argument outside the Zinc nightclub in Southend at about 0230 GMT Saturday morning.

An Essex Police spokesman said friends who took them to Basildon Hospital were set upon and their people-carrier set alight by a group of men who had been waiting for them on the hospital car park.

All the people in the car managed to escape unhurt.

The attackers sped off in two cars with blacked-out windows - a Peugeot 206 and an Audi A3.

Nightclub footage

One of the three, who was stabbed in the lung, remains in hospital. A second man has been discharged.

The spokesman said the third man, whose injuries were minor, walked out of the hospital after supplying a false name and address.

Officers are to examine CCTV footage from the nightclub to try to identify the attackers.

Police have yet to establish a motive for the stabbings and are appealing for anyone with information to contact them.

The attack was the second double stabbing in Essex that night.

Two men who walked into a Clacton pub covered in blood earlier in the evening had also been stabbed.

Their condition is described as "stable".