Heart-stopping moment dad chases masked gang after they invaded home & took daughters, 7 and 10, hostage with knives
A TERRIFIED dad has told how four masked men took his young daughters hostage with knives and threatened to kill his son before ransacking his home.
Mohammed Ali, 39, woke to “panicked screams” from his girls aged seven and 12, as robbers burst through his front door with machetes, a meat cleaver and a brick.
The HGV driver first saw two of the intruders on the stairs of his semi-detached four-bed home as another held a knife against his daughters’ throats in their living room.
And when his son emerged from his upstairs bedroom seconds later, one of the men yelled, “Kill him, kill him” before advancing towards the 18-year-old.
Mr Ali said he pushed that attacker back into his bedroom and ran to a bathroom, where the family took refuge while the robbers hacked at the doors with machetes.
After five minutes, the invaders finally fled the property – stealing his white Seat Leon car from the driveway after finding the keys.
Mr Ali now says he has been left “broken” by the incident – while also feeling he had “failed” his family.
He said: “My daughter said one of them had a knife and he was saying, ‘It’s all your dad’s fault, be f***ing quiet’, and was putting a knife to her neck.
“They all had gloves and everything, but you could see their eyes through the balaclava – and their voice, I could never forget it.
“I’ve not slept since. My family is broken. My kids wouldn’t come home.
“It was my daughter’s birthday yesterday, and literally everything is spoiled and I don’t know what to do or what to say to them. I feel like I’ve failed them.”
He recalled going to bed last Tuesday at 9.30pm, leaving his five-year-old youngest son and two daughters watching the TV at their home in Oldham.
His make-up artist wife Michelle Dunkley, 40, had forgotten her keys when she left the house for work in the evening, so he had unlocked the door before heading upstairs.
But at 11pm he heard one of his daughters utter a high-pitched scream before finding two masked men on the stairs holding metre-long machetes.
He said: “It wasn’t a scream where the kids were fighting. This was a panicked scream, a worried scream. I knew as a parent this was not normal.
“As I was trying to get down the stairs, I was faced by three guys in balaclavas. Two were on the stairs, one at the bottom, and one had my kids downstairs.
“I started screaming, ‘Get out, get out’. They started swearing at me. My son had the room next to the stairs, and when he came out, they said, ‘Kill him, kill him’.
“I pushed him into his room and closed the door and they started coming up the stairs. I went to the bathroom, which was right behind me.
“I was just screaming, ‘Make sure they don’t get to you!’
“They started hacking at the doors with the machetes and while they were hacking it the third guy was ransacking my house.”
Mr Ali said he spent a terrifying five minutes holding the door shut, hoping the men would not break through.
And when he finally realised they had made their way down the stairs, he heard the rev of his car engine and realised they were trying to steal his car.
He added: “I was still half asleep. I was dazed and in a panic and I didn’t know if they’d got my son or my other kids downstairs.
“Once my car started and they were driving off, I gave chase then went inside and saw my kids were all right.”
Mr Ali said his children were thankfully unharmed despite their trauma, while – other than his vehicle – the burglars had only taken a box of his daughter’s miniature dolls.
But after he shared footage of the robbery on social media, another family in nearby Rochdale reported the same gang had attacked them just an hour later.
The disturbed dad said he had reported the attack to Greater Manchester Police but felt they were not taking the incident seriously enough.
He said: “It’s absolutely disgraceful. I left it with the police. But it’s like they’re not bothered.”
Greater Manchester Police have been approached for comment.