'Daniels stamped on our heads'

When Duane Daniels burst into Mark Cull and Karen Hierlehy's Twickenham flat at 4am, the couple thought he was their flatmate stumbling in from the pub.

A second later they heard Dan Jones moaning in his room as Daniels's gang laid into him with a wooden mallet. When their bedroom door was flung open and masked thugs marched in screaming, "Don't look at us, don't look at us," Ms Hierlehy, 31, began sobbing in terror.

The gang forced the couple to lie face down on their futon. One ripped flex from the TV and tied their wrists and ankles so tightly their hands and feet went numb. "I have never experienced such terror before and I never will again," said Mr Cull, 27.

Daniels and his gang planned to smash their way through the first-floor flat into the Halifax building below.

As the couple lay in the dark they heard Mr Jones, 30, being dragged upstairs. "We heard him moan as they hit him again and again with the mallet," said Ms Hierlehy. "He later said they made him crouch on all fours while they attacked him."

When he was forced face down at the end of the couple's bed, one of the gang, thought to be Daniels, leaped on it. "He was completely hyper," said Ms Hierlehy. "He demanded our credit cards and questioned us about bank balances and PINs. When we couldn't remember he went mad, stamping on our heads. We were literally seeing stars."

When Mr Cull's head began to throb, he moved it slightly: "I realised there was a bloke standing there beside me. He said, 'Are you looking at me?' and I said, 'No,' but he put the tip of a knife to my throat.

"He said, 'Can you feel it? Are you sure you weren't looking at me?' and plunged the knife into my shoulder. He twisted and flicked it as he pulled it out and I heard my skin rip. Blood poured over my shoulder and pooled on the mattress."

The man, probably Daniels, barked: "You better remember your PIN numbers, otherwise I'm going to start cutting", before going downstairs to smash his way through the floorboards.

The banging continued for more than two hours while gang members demanded to know what time the Halifax staff started. Mr Cull said: "One spotted my laptop. I felt a thud on the back of my skull and realised he had hit me with it. It was in its padded bag but he hit me so hard it broke the keyboard."

At around 8.30am two female Halifax staff arrived to be confronted by Daniels leaping through the hole in the ceiling. One pressed the silent alarm before she and her colleague were tied up and stamped on. The three upstairs heard a police siren, but the man guarding them did not move until the patrol car was outside. The gang escaped with nothing from the Halifax and little from the flat, and a short while later three were caught.

Mr Jones untied Mr Cull's ankles with his teeth, allowing him to run for help. All three victims still suffer mentally from the events of 7 February last year.