Child-threatening robber strikes again

The man who held a knife to a three-year-old's throat to force the girl's mother to hand over cash and her car has struck again, this time robbing a woman at an ATM in the same Melbourne suburb.

Police believe the same man committed an armed robbery in Melbourne's outer west on Friday afternoon, using the car he had stolen a day earlier.

A balaclava-clad man threatened a 23-year-old woman with a knife as she was using an ATM at Bakery Square in Melton about 7pm on Friday, police said.

The woman handed over cash before the man ran to the car and drove off towards Smith Street.

Detective Sergeant Mark Guthrie said it was a brazen armed robbery in a busy shopping precinct.

"The woman is obviously shaken but thankfully unharmed," he said in a statement on Friday night.

Police said the offender fled in the car that was stolen in an incident at a Melton West shopping centre on Thursday night, a 1994 aqua Ford Falcon, registration NAO 200.

The balaclava-clad man, who had red or light hair and pale skin, had pounced o the car as soon as the 25-year-old mother had strapped in her three-year-old daughter about 8.20pm on Thursday, police say.

The man threatened the toddler with a 25-centimetre long knife and forced the mother, Carly, to hand over the $NZ24.91 she had in her pocket.

When she told him she didn't have any more money and her ATM card account was empty too, he ordered her to drive home.

There, her partner was forced to hand over about $A200 in cash before he forced them to drive off.

The man finally stopped at the Melton Waves Leisure Centre where he ordered the two out of the car as he sped off down the road.

The thief involved in Friday's robbery is described as 175cm tall with a thin build and wearing a black balaclava.

- AAP