UNDERCOVER cameras are to be placed on bridges along a stretch of the M20 to combat stone-throwing vandals who are putting drivers' lives at risk.

Maidstone and Malling Police are taking the steps to try to catch youths who repeatedly hurl objects over two motorway footbridges between junction four at Leybourne and junction five at Aylesford.

The news comes in the same week as two motorists came forward to say they too had suffered overhead attacks on the motorway.

Both decided to contact the Kent Messenger after reading about a van driver who had stones thrown at his car from a footbridge on the motorway on Sunday, January 18.

Sally Watson, from Eccles, near Maidstone, had just driven onto the M20 near junction five at Aylesford on the same day when her windscreen was hit by two stones thrown from the footbridge at the end of Teapot Lane.

Miss Watson said the attack happened just an hour after the van was struck.

"It was frightening," she said. "As I drove under the footbridge, I could see there were a few kids up on the top of the footbridge, but I didn't expect them to throw anything.

"Suddenly I heard this noise and there was a crack in my windscreen. There was no traffic in front of me, so I knew it had come from above. It was quite scary because I was in the car on my own."

Another woman from Aylesford, who does not want to be named, was driving along the motorway from Maidstone to pick up her daughter from West Malling Station at 1.15pm on Saturday.

Shortly before junction four at Leybourne, a pair of teenage boys threw a stone at her vehicle, cracking her sunroof and forcing her to swerve.

"As I went underneath the bridge there was an almighty explosion," she said. "I swerved but managed to keep control. I instantly knew it had come from above."

She phoned West Malling Police Station to report the incident, and says that officers there admitted it was the second similar complaint they had received that day.

She said: "I'm so angry with the people responsible. They don't realise what they are doing. They will kill someone."

Ch Insp Dan Murphy, of Maidstone and Malling Police, said officers would be travelling to schools to make teachers aware of what was happening.

"If these youths continue to throw objects at cars there is real possibility that they will be caught on our undercover cameras. Any offender caught throwing objects at vehicles in this way will be dealt with through the courts," he said.

Police are looking for five teenagers with a white dog in connection with the attack on the van driver from the Teapot Lane footbridge near junction 5 at Aylesford.

Anyone who has information about any of the attacks is asked to Police on 01622 608189.