A young father was beaten with a hammer in front of his heavily pregnant wife in an armed robbery on their home.

Their children, aged two, three and six, slept while three masked men smashed through the family’s front door at around 7.30pm.

Running upstairs, they demanded rent money, appearing to know that the victim collected rent for his property business.

“They repeated ‘where’s the money?’, again and again,” said the 27-year-old, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals.

“One beat me with a hammer on my head and gave three blows on my side. I was screaming and lost my senses for a few minutes.”

The man’s wife, also 27, fled from their bedroom to the front door of their Broughton Park, Salford, home.

She was followed by one intruder who locked her in and later threatened to beat her.

In desperation, the woman, who is eight months pregnant, gave the men cash from her handbag. She banged on walls and screamed to alert neighbours. But they were out at the time.

“My only sense was telling me to get them out of the house and give them what they wanted,” she said.

The men fled with cash and the keys, which they found in the husband’s jacket, to the family’s car. They fought off passers-by in the street as they made their escape, smashing a hole in one car with the hammer.

A fourth man, waiting in a getaway car, drove off two of the gang while the other took the couple’s Mondeo.

A friend of the victims, Sarah Garb, was confronted by the men as they fled. She said: “When I saw a masked man in a car, I just thought, where can I hide?”

Her husband, Josh, was one of the first to help the family.

“He was covered in blood, which was dripping all over the house, but he was still conscious. He had a gash in his head and over his eye,” he said.

The man later received stitches and doctors used staples to close his wounds, but his wife was left unharmed.

He said: “We’re pleasantly surprised how much support there has been from the local Jewish community.” Swinton CID’s Detective Sergeant Dave Hayes is appealing to the public to spot the family’s black Ford Mondeo, with the registration P3 REF.

He said: “Needless to say, this young family has been left petrified by this vicious attack. We are working very hard to catch those responsible.”