A family had to flee their home for Christmas and New Year after it was burgled twice in a matter of days.

Anthony and Sarah Dixon and their three young children are too scared to go back to their semi-detached house, and have been living with relatives since the break-ins.

They believe the same villain is responsible for both incidents and detectives are now studying CCTV footage of a suspect in both cases.

The first incident took place in the early hours of Christmas Eve. Mr Dixon, 46, a self-employed DJ, came downstairs to find a raider had stolen £2,500 worth of presents for their children – Elisha, six, five-year-old Keiron, and Bethany, who is nearly two – which had been wrapped and stored in sacks in the hall of the house in Nature Way, Woodside, Bradford.

He said: “The CCTV showed this lad breaking into our car on the drive. He found house keys, which I had in the car for safe keeping, and used them to get in the front door.

“We had been buying presents throughout the year and our hall was like an Aladdin’s Cave. All that was left was four or five presents. When I realised somebody had stolen them I was gutted. We were really upset and couldn’t believe it had happened.

“We went to the shops on Christmas Eve trying to pick up a few replacement presents, but the children only had a handful to open on Christmas morning.

“Fortunately their grandparents had bought lots for them, so we told them Santa had taken them there. But it ruined Christmas for us.”

Mrs Dixon said she had been too scared to go back to the house since and she and the children have been staying with her mother.

Mr Dixon did return but was woken by what they believe to be the same intruder in the early hours of December 28.

He said: “I heard a couple of thuds and went into the kitchen to investigate and saw a shadow outside the window.

“I saw him running away. If I could have caught him I would have walloped him, I was so annoyed. We are looking for somewhere else to live now. You just feel scared and that you are watching your back all the time. Every time a car goes by or somebody walks past you are thinking about who it is and what they want.”

He claimed he had contacted Yorkshire Housing Association, owners of the property, about the alarm and front door lock but had been told his case was not a priority and it would take 28 days to deal with.

Police confirmed they were investigating the two break-ins at the property and studying CCTV footage of a potential suspect.

A spokesman for Yorkshire Housing said: “Mr Dixon called us on December 24 to report a faulty alarm. We then booked this job in as a routine appointment. After speaking to the electrician who was assigned this job, we were advised that the part needed to fix the alarm would need to be ordered as they did not have it in stock. We then informed Mr Dixon.

“On December 29 Mr Dixon called us again to say that the door handle is also broken due to another attempted burglary and he was concerned about the safety of the property as the alarm had not been fixed too. We advised Mr Dixon that there are a number of properties in the area without burglar alarms and as such we can’t class this as an emergency, however we have pushed this job forward and we hope to have the alarm and door handle fixed in the first week in January.”