A MAJOR cash reward is being offered to help catch three robbers who subjected an elderly couple to a terrifying ordeal in their own home.

Detectives investigating the aggravated burglary at the bungalow of grandparents Harry Carrick and Sylvia Everett are hoping the £3,000 reward put up by Crimestoppers will provide information leading to an arrest into the incident which happened on January 12, at Laburnum Grove, Cleadon Village.

The three men forced their way into the bungalow, tied up the couple and threatened to cut off their fingers unless they revealed the location of cash and jewellery.

Storming into their home, the masked men pulled pillowcases over their victims’ heads and left them tied up for over an hour while they ransacked the house, taking their savings and an estimated £25,000 worth of jewellery and leaving Mr Carrick with painful bruising.

Now, more than a week since the crime, they are still on the loose and Mrs Everett, 75 and Mr Carrick, 78, say they have been left deeply traumatised and appealed for anyone with information to come forward.

“It’s been a living hell,” said Sylvia, a former postmistress from Nottingham, who moved to Cleadon 20 years ago after meeting Mr Everett on a cruise.

“We’ve hardly slept at night because we are so frightened they are going to come back. When I close my eyes I am haunted by those horrible masks, coming at me with a raised crowbar and my own pillowcases.

“I have given them away to a charity shop, I couldn’t bear to see them.”