TWO men who burgled terrified pensioners in their holiday home before bundling them into the back of their car and taking them on a high-speed joyride to a cash point have been jailed.

The 84 and 85-year-old couple were subjected to a two-hour ordeal which saw them hit on the head with a walking stick, grabbed around the throat and kidnapped.

The pair were watching television in their Scarborough flat on January 26 this year when Carl Howley, 30, and a knife-wielding Nicholas Dodsworth, 20, knocked on their door with their faces covered.

When the couple answered, the drunk men forced the door open and barged past the terrified husband and wife demanding cash, jewellery and credit cards.

Dodsworth searched their Esplanade home for valuables while Howley asked them for their pin codes, then struck the 85-year-old woman with a walking stick when she hesitated and said he would “cut her throat.”

Peter Sabiston, prosecuting at York Crown Court, said: “She said she would take them to a cashpoint so they were bundled out of the flat and into the car which was driven very fast, up to 90mph and they were screaming ‘yee haw!”

The couple’s Land Rover was driven by Howley and the frightening incident only came to an end when one of the victims was able to knock the car into neutral.

When the car stopped the thieves ran off, believing it had broken down.

Howley, of South Street and Dodsworth, of North Marine Drive, both Scarborough, pleaded guilty to kidnap and aggravated burglary.

Both received nine-year jail sentences and were banned from driving for three years.

In a statement read out in court, both victims said the incident had left them suffering nightmares and they were “constantly on edge” in a car.

Judge Colin Burn said: “They had no way of knowing, when they were put into that car, that when it set off at speed they were ever going to get out of it alive, and that only adds to the terror.”