A girl gang has been locked up for six and a half years after savagely beating a woman round the head with a vodka bottle and robbing her on a station platform.

The three yobs were caught when fellow passengers ran to the victim’s aid at New Cross station. Police called it a "vicious, despicable and cowardly attack".

Shukri Warsame, 24, Saida Mohamed, 20 and an unnamed 15-year-old approached the 29-year-old commuter asking for a cigarette around 10.25pm on Friday, 20 November 2009.

Warsame then stood in front of the victim, with Mohamed and the other girl moving to surround her. Warsame then attacked her with a large glass vodka bottle, striking her repeatedly on the back of the head and demanding she hand over her mobile phone.

Mohamed and the other girl joined in the attack, punching and kicking her until they had managed to prise the mobile phone from her hand.

They then took the victim’s handbag, despite the wound on the back of her head streaming with blood, before Warsame threw the bottle onto the tracks, where it smashed.

The group tried to flee the station after the attack, with Mohamed and the other girl making a dash for the stairs and Warsame crossing the tracks to the opposite platform, but they were restrained by passengers, who had come to the victim’s aid.

The victim’s handbag was recovered and her phone found in her attackers pocket after police and the London Ambulance Service were called to the station by concerned passengers who pointed out the culprits.

DS Wolstenholme praised the “good samaritans” who came to the woman’s aid, adding:

"Had it not been for their brave intervention this trio may not have been captured so swiftly."

The 15-year-old girl from Ilford, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of robbery and will be sentenced at a later date.