'It was terrifying - I was sure we would be killed'

A wealthy London businessman has put up a pounds 20,000 reward to catch the armed raiders who brutally attacked him and his young family in their own home.

The computer company director acted after his baby boy was knocked to the ground, his wife threatened with an axe, and he was beaten up during the attack at his pounds 2 million house in Twickenham.

The raid happened last week but it has taken several days for him to summon the courage to talk about what happened, in the hope that by doing so he may help trap the gang who he fears will strike again

IT HAD been a pleasant night, one of the couple's first evenings out since the birth of their first child last month. They were returning to their beautiful six-bedroom, detached home close to the river, when the gang struck with terrifying ferocity.

"As we came in the front door we were attacked by a group of between six and eight men," recalled the 30-year-old, who is still too terrified to be identified. "They had broken in and armed themselves with things they'd found from around the house - baseball bats, a kitchen knife, an axe - and were lurking on both sides of the door, waiting for us.

"The baby, who is only five weeks old, went flying. The guy with the axe ran at my wife with the weapon raised above his head. It was absolutely terrifying. Three or four of

them knocked me to the ground and pinned me down."

Because the baby was safely strapped into a portable car seat, which landed cleanly the right way up, he was not injured as he was knocked to the floor. His father, however, sustained two broken ribs as well as cuts and bruises as he was overpowered.

He was bundled into an upstairs room, but his only concern was for the safety of his son, as he was unaware that the boy had not been hurt in the chaos.

"I couldn't hear him - and the fact there was silence was much, much worse than if there had been crying. My wife was pleading with them not to hurt the baby."

During the incident, a week ago

this evening, the gang repeatedly threatened to kill the man and his 27-year-old wife, demanding cash which they seemed convinced he stored around the house.

"I kept telling them I didn't have any cash but that they could have anything else," he said of the gang, who were in their late teens or early twenties. "Their behaviour was very erratic. They kept saying they'd 'cut' or 'stab' me and I really thought I was going to be killed."

Eventually the gang tied the couple up, using electrical flex, put a pillow case over the man's head and fled, taking his collection of gold and diamond watches, worth pounds 120,000, as well as other jewellery and two flat-screen televisions.

They escaped in his pounds 50,000 BMW X5, registration LL51 WXF, spurning the Ferrari parked alongside it.

He believes the raiders had

drugged his two terrier dogs before breaking in. The baby appears to have only momentarily stirred as he was dropped to the ground and otherwise slept through the entire 15-minute ordeal. His mother managed to loosen her hands and raised the alarm shortly after the raiding gang had left.

The couple were so shaken by the incident that this interview with the Evening Standard was the first time the husband has been back to the house in Twickenham since the attack. "We have been staying with family and friends," he said. "I don't know if we'll be able to live here again."

He said the attack had been particularly shocking as it came so soon after the joy of having their first child. "You can't even imagine what it was like to have your loved ones treated like that," he said. "To have it happen inside your own home, where the very walls you think are keeping you safe are what is stopping people seeing what is happening and calling for help."

He has put up a reward because "I want these people taken off the streets before they do this to someone else".

Detective Inspector Clarke Jarrett, who is leading the hunt, said he hoped the reward would help. "This clearly was not an ordinary burglary," he said.

"It was a cowardly and vicious attack on a family with a very young baby.

This is a dangerous group of men and we have to get any information we can before they commit further offences. I'm sure someone out there must know this gang."

_Anyone with information - call Twickenham CID on 020 8247 7031 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

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