A young mother was subjected to a terrifying knifepoint ordeal in her own home as an eight-strong gang tried to find her boyfriend.

Stewart McFadden, aged 29, was brandishing a meat cleaver as he led the gang which attacked the home in Newton Abbot's Buckland estate, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Occupier Gina Perry was about to go to bed at 1am when the men forced their way into the house and McFadden allegedly held her at knifepoint in the kitchen.

The gang threatened to torture her and her children, aged two and three, unless she helped them find her partner.