A mystery vigilante, nicknamed the “Bromley Batman”, has been seen in action by several witnesses cleaning up the streets of South London from knife-wielding gangs and muggers.

The incognito hero who wears a mask, combat trousers and is reported to have a “well-groomed beard” first made headlines when he saved a City worker from being robbed by a knife gang in Bromley town centre, South London.

In scenes reminiscent from the TV series Only Fools and Horses, in which Del Boy and his brother Rodney help save a woman from being mugged while dressed up as Batman and Robin, Bromley’s very own superhero kicked aggressors to the ground and swung another into a prickly hedge.

The victim, Ken – who has withheld his name as he has not spoken to his family about the incident – told the Evening Standard that the man came to his rescue “out of nowhere” and was “dressed in combat-style trousers and a tight muscle top, and wearing a black bandanna mask”.

There have now been two further encounters with the mystery hero reported a few miles away in nearby Penge and Lewisham, according to the Evening Standard.

Rumours that the "Batman" may be an expert in martial arts were sparked when a second witness in Penge allegedly saw him put a drunken attacker, who was punching and kicking another man in the street, into a “ninja lock”.

Despite these reports police have received no information of a masked crime fighter in South London.

The man is not the first person to take crime into his own hands. In 2011, a man standing outside a nightclub in Seattle was saved from an attack by a masked, self-proclaimed superhero wearing a muscle bodysuit who doused the aggressor with pepper spray.