The teenage son of the leader of Merton Conservatives has been attacked during an attempted mugging.

Toby Moulton, the 16-year-old son of Councillor Oonagh Moulton, was returning from a party in Southfields with five friends when they were approached by a gang in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Coun Moulton said: "One of them said they had a knife.

"Toby said, don't be silly guys, you are just going to get a criminal record and then just as he was saying this he got a great punch on his cheek and then one of them got quite frenzied and started punching the group, including one of the girls who got a punch, I believe, to her forehead."

Toby and the other three boys and two girls, all pupils at St Cecilia's school in Wandsworth, escaped into a house on Elsenham Street.

Police arrested an 18-year-old man, a 19-year-old woman and a 20-year-old woman on suspicion of robbery.

They were taken to a South London police station and released on bail to return in March.

Toby and his friends, aged 15 to 17, were cut and bloodied, but no-one was seriously injured.