TWO armed burglars who burst into a house where two young children were sleeping and attacked their father have been jailed.

Raymond Neil Harris, who was carrying a hammer, was jailed for 13 years. His accomplice, Simon Timothy Kay, who was carrying a knife, was jailed for nine years.

Harris had previously carried out a similar armed house raid and both men were high on drugs and alcohol at the time, York Crown Court heard.

Harris hit the father with the hammer, the jury heard.

When the father, dressed only in boxer shorts, managed to grab the hammer from Harris, Harris threatened him and Kay raised his knife.

Woken by the noise, the householder’s two-year-old son had gone to see what was happening. Kay then kicked the toddler’s father.

The court heard that as the intruders stole the father’s car and fled the home in Clifton, the victim’s six-year-old son, who had been sleeping in his dad’s bedroom, screamed so loudly he woke a neighbour.

One of the children is now so traumatised he is terrified whenever he sees a “hoodie” in the street and gets nervous when he hears a noise at night.

Judge Stephen Ashurst, the Recorder of York, said: “People who make others fear for their own safety in their own homes must receive appropriate punishment as a very serious deterrent.”

Harris, 30, of Fossway, and Kay, 22, of Tamworth Road, both in York, had denied aggravated burglary, causing actual bodily harm to the father and aggravated car snatching, but were convicted and sentenced at York Crown Court.

Harris, who drove the car away, was banned from driving for three years.

Kay was on a suspended prison sentence and a community order at the time of the burglary. Harris had previously served a four-and-a-half year prison sentence for aggravated burglary.

The judge said they had “gambled on trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the jury” by running “extremely bogus defences” and said Harris was the “prime mover” in the crimes.

Lawyers for both men said they had committed their latest crimes while addicted to drugs and alcohol.

For Harris, Benjamin Myers said: “He is not an inherently violent offender”. He was a “nervous” man who had taken the hammer to the victim’s house to support a threat, rather than to inflict a serious injury.

Since being remanded in custody, he had sought to rehabilitate himself and to train as a joiner. He was concerned about the effect a long sentence would have on his relationship with his own children.

Judge Ashurst said if Harris’s children had been the victim of a similar crime, he would expect the courts to pass a heavy sentence.

For Kay, Nicholas Barker said he was a “damaged person himself” because of a road crash that had killed his mother and two siblings and blighted his life.

He had not wanted to harm the child and had been concerned for the child’s safety. He had been a “follower” in the crimes.

Both men said they now regretted their crimes, but the judge said he was sceptical of their regret because they had denied the charges.