A 22-year-old man has been jailed for three years for bursting into a terrified family’s home at night, smashing the windows and damaging cars.

A jury yesterday found Forhad Ahmed guilty of burglary with intent to do unlawful damage at a house in Ashbourne Way, Bolton, Bradford, at about 11.30pm on January 7.

Ahmed, of Binnie Street, Barkerend, Bradford, was also convicted of damaging a Volksagen Golf and a Mercedes-Benz parked at the address.

Prosecutor John Topham told the jury at Bradford Crown Court that Ahmed was part of a hammer-wielding gang that knocked the front door off its hinges and shattered the downstairs windows at the rented home.

Mr Topham said a crowd of neighbours disturbed by the violence gathered in the street.

The intruders, one armed with a hammer, broke the television set and damaged furniture before fleeing in a dark-coloured van.

Police sealed off the house, where Abdul Basith, his wife, sister-in-law, elderly parents and two young children had been sleeping.

Mr Basith, a restaurant worker, told the jury he heard glass smashing and opened his bedroom door to be confronted by a man with a hammer on the landing. Two other men were coming upstairs.

His 80-year-old father and his mother, in her 60s, were sleeping downstairs when the door was broken down.

“My wife was screaming and my son was crying,” he told the jury.

Ahmed was arrested after blood on the landing wall was found to match his, Mr Topham said.

Mr Basith said the family had no idea why the property was targeted by the gang.

He told the jury that Ahmed was a friend of the family and he was not one of the three intruders he saw in the house.

The jury was also told that neither the Crown nor the police had found any reason for the violence.

The police had not apprehended any more members of the gang, which comprised up to six young men.

In his defence, Ahmed said he was told of the incident and went into the house that night to check if everyone was all right.

He cut his hand on broken glass on his way in and he left when he heard someone say the police had been called.