Terrifying moment hooded knife gang raid family home and 'threaten to kidnap baby'

Owen Sheppard30 July 2018
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A father today told how nine machete-wielding burglars burst into his family home and threatened to kidnap his baby in a night-time raid.

Emrul Hussain said he woke to find two raiders waving knives at him as another grabbed his neck.

CCTV footage shows the hooded gang wrench open the door of the house in Shadwell, east London, where Mr Hussain lives with his wife, parents, brothers and baby girl, just after 3.30am on Friday.

Two-month-old Anya was sleeping upstairs when Mr Hussain heard one of the burglars repeatedly yell “get the baby”.

Suspects: A gang of men gather outside a house in Shadwell

The gang stole a Rolex watch, which Mr Hussain’s wife had bought him as a wedding present, and his mother’s golden wedding bangle, which she had worn for 40 years.

They left only after Mr Hussain’s brother shouted “Police! Police!” from behind his bedroom door. CCTV shows them fleeing through the front door and speeding off in a silver Mercedes.

A CCTV still appears to show two hooded men entering the property

Mr Hussain, 28, said the ordeal has left his family too scared to leave the house. “I woke up to someone grabbing my neck and two guys waving knives at me,” he said. “The knife was nearly the length of my arm. I was in shock.

“They said, ‘Don’t make a sound’. My first instinct was to think of my baby and my wife. I tried to get up, and the guy said, ‘Where you going, bruv?’ I said, ‘Take whatever you want but don’t hurt my family’. ”

Mr Hussain said three of the gang restrained him in the living room, while others charged into his parents’ room. They held knives and machetes to his father’s stomach and neck while another slapped his mother before swiping the bangle from her wrist.

Two family members chase the suspects out of the house

Two more men entered his wife Taslima’s room, where baby Anya was asleep. Mr Hussain, who works for his father’s clothes manufacturing firm, added: “One of them said, ‘Grab the baby’, and I thought they would try and use her as leverage. They kept saying, ‘Where’s the safe?’ but we don’t have a safe. We don’t keep many valuables in the house.”

He believes the attack was targeted, saying: “I think there were kids who had watched some TV shows and assumed that because this is a nice community, with nice cars parked outside, that we would have a safe in the house.

One of the suspects is shown on CCTV covering his face 

“One of them had a rucksack. I think it had bottles in it. I was terrified they could have been filled with acid. I was scared they might have tied us up and kept asking where our valuables are.” He added: “It’s not about what was stolen, it’s the psychological effect this has had … My wife could have been killed. My baby could have been killed. My family had done nothing wrong.”

Acting detective sergeant Justin Franklin, of Whitechapel CID, said: “This was a terrifying attack on a family asleep in their home. The culprits were violent and need to be caught as soon as possible.”

The men, aged 19-22, are all seen on CCTV in black and grey tracksuit bottoms and jackets with black gloves. No arrests have been made.

Anyone with information that could help detectives should call 101.

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