A Princes Town cou­ple en­dured a ter­ri­fy­ing or­deal in the ear­ly hours of Tues­day when four masked ban­dits broke in­to their home, as­sault­ed them, and es­caped with cash, valu­ables, and even the keys to their cars.

The at­tack un­fold­ed around 3 am in Cleghorn Vil­lage, where po­lice said the vic­tims, a labour­er and his part­ner, who op­er­ates a small par­lour busi­ness, had se­cured their home the night be­fore and were asleep when the in­trud­ers struck.

The men, de­scribed as slim to medi­um build and dressed in black with their faces cov­ered, forced en­try by re­mov­ing lou­vre panes from a side win­dow. One of the as­sailants, armed with a knife, beat the male vic­tim, while an­oth­er in­flict­ed a cut to the woman’s hand dur­ing a strug­gle. The cou­ple were then tied up with cloth as the ban­dits ran­sacked both the house and the ad­join­ing shop.