A pregnant woman broke down as she recalled her terrifying ordeal at the hands of a vicious attacker who struck as she was preparing tea.

Jenny Harper, 25, who is just six weeks pregnant, curled in a ball to protect her stomach and begged the masked man to stop hitting her as he repeatedly smashed her head with a club resembling a baseball bat at her Keighley home.

He lunged after her through the kitchen when she answered a knock on the door, and followed her into the living room of the house in Hardwick Street, lashing out as she fell on the stairs.

Her screams for help, and pleas to 'stop hitting me, I'm pregnant' alerted a lodger in an attic room, who dashed downstairs to find the attacker had fled.

The man - who remained silent throughout the attack - left Jenny with a broken hand and fractured fingers and two gashes in her head which needed 23 stitches.

Police are baffled as to the motive for the attack, which happened shortly after Jenny's boyfriend, Bradford Royal Mail manager, Simon Oxley, 28, had left to take a friend's son home on Saturday evening.

Jenny arrived home shortly afterwards from her mum's house in Keighley and was preparing tea at around 6.30pm when she heard a tap at the door and thought it was her nephew.

"I opened the door, I looked down and then, as I looked up, I saw this black figure in a mask at the same time as he hit me," said Jenny, who works at Clippers hair studio in Allerton, Bradford.

"I turned round and ran in the house and up the stairs and he was behind me. I fell on the stairs and he started hitting me again."

Jenny thinks the man, who was wearing a balaclava with eyeholes, then heard the lodger coming downstairs and ran out of the house.

She is still unsure what the attacker hit her with, but it resembled a bat and made a pinging noise when it struck, she said.

Simon said he arrived home on Saturday to see police dashing into the house where Jenny was sitting in a chair covered in blood. He said they were concerned about Jenny's baby and she was to undergo tests today at Airedale Hospital in Steeton.

Keighley police have combed Lund Park near the scene of the attack. A neighbour spotted a man acting suspiciously near the couple's home, two hours before the attack. Officers are appealing to anyone who may have seen a stranger in the area from about 4.30pm on Saturday, to come forward.

The attacker is described as 5ft 10ins to 6ft tall and was wearing a shiny, waist-length bomber jacket and black gloves. Anyone with information should telephone Keighley police on (01535) 617080.

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