Family ‘glad to be alive’ after armed raiders target property

HAMMER-WIELDING thugs raided a home and made off with £50,000 of cash and jewellery after climbing through a seven-year-old’s bedroom window.

The trio of raiders ransacked the £2 million property before fleeing with passports and the householders’ £57,000 Audi Q7 car.

Victoria Reeve, 41, told how she was confronted the bedroom by the men who hit Adrian, her husband, with hammers to persuade him to reveal where the family cash was hidden.

Fearful that the raiders might attack his children and wife, the insurance broker opened the safe that contained only documents and then had to reveal a secret compartment in the bedroom where £10,000 in cash was hidden.

Detectives said the raid happened in the early hours of Thursday in the riverside village of Sonning, Berks.

The alarm was raised at just before 12.30am when 47-year-old Adrian Pead heard a noise and confronted one of the thieves who had climbed into his sleeping daughter’s bedroom.

They had snatched a ladder from the garden of a neighbouring house and all three burglars scaled it to get in.

Mrs Reeve, who goes by her maiden name, told of the terrifying 10 minutes in which she and Adrian were held in their bedroom by the masked men who demanded: “Where’s the safe?”

She said: “They put the fear of God into us and I can only console myself with the thought that at least we are still alive.” Thames Valley Police is appealing for witnesses.