Widow says she will never feel safe again after terrifying house raid

Ross Underwood, one of the thugs involved, was jailed for seven years and four months at Wolverhampton Crown Court by Judge Michael Dudley who told him: "The fear that you engendered must have been dreadful."

He told the pair when sentencing: "This was serious, professional crime."

• Evil ‘scumbags’ wrecked my life - Widow hits out at raiders

The 53-year-old widow and mother of two told the Express &?Star that Underwood and his associates each had a girlfriend or wife and she asked: "How would they feel if their loved one was put through an ordeal like I had to endure at their hands?

"How could they behave like this towards a woman?"

The victim, whose husband died seven years ago, had left the front door of the Woodsetton house unlocked because her 23-year-old daughter was out.

She had gone to bed to watch TV and was alone in the house when raiders armed with a crowbar burst into the room.

They snatched her mobile phone, pinned her to the bed and ransacked drawers and rooms before fleeing with two watches, one of which was worth more than £10,000 and had been bought for her late husband's 40th birthday before being given it to her daughter as a lasting memento. The stolen watch has never been found.

The widow revealed: "My life has been turned upside down by this.

"It was bad enough to lose my husband without having masked men burst into my bedroom to wreck my life. I had alarms before this happened but have since spent £5,000 having cameras and electric gates fitted but I still do not feel safe.

She said: "My husband went to work with chemotherapy bottles strapped to him so that he could earn a living to provide for his family but these scum think they have a god-given right to break into somebody else's house and take what they want.

"I am frightened to go out and frightened to come back home at night. What kind of life is that?"

Underwood was sentenced alongside Richard Howell, 37, who had joined him on three appalling robberies although not that at the Woodsetton home of the widow. He was jailed for six years.

The pair dragged another woman from her £22,000 Audi TT in front of her 13-year-old daughter at the Orbital Retail Park in Cannock around 11am on August 13, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

The pair struck with another crook at the Spar in Lapwood Avenue, Kingswinford, the next night, armed with a crowbar, and filled bins with £8,000 worth of cigarettes after threatening women staff.

Howell – who was only freed from jail three months earlier – and Underwood then stole £3,000 cigarettes and cash from the Co-op in Dudley Road West, Tividale.