Detectives were today interviewing a lorry driver forced off the A23 at gunpoint and robbed of his cargo after he mistook an armed gang for police.

John Goodman, 54, pulled over when he spotted a vehicle displaying a blue flashing light on the London to Brighton road, near Pease Pottage.

He stopped on the hard shoulder near Handcross, thinking it was a police check.

But he found himself confronted by a man wielding a gun who told him to drive to a secluded spot near Bolney, where he was forced into the back of the lorry.

Mr Goodman, from Hertfordshire, was viciously attacked, threatened with the gun and tied up.

The gang took thousands of pounds' worth of cigarettes from the white articulated Booker Distribution lorry, leaving the driver, who was on his way to Brighton, tied up in the back.

But the shocked driver, who has not been named, managed to free himself and flagged down a police car to raise the alarm following the incident just after 10.30pm on Friday.

Police are asking motorists travelling to Sussex on the southbound M23 and A23, between 10.30pm and 11.30pm, who saw the lorry and the vehicle with the blue light to get in touch with them.

They particularly want to speak to anyone who saw the lorry while it briefly stopped between Pease Pottage and Handcross.

To passing motorists it would have looked like a police check.

The lorry driver did not need hospital treatment and spent the weekend recovering at his London home with his family before being interviewed by police.