PICTURED: Balaclava-clad sledgehammer gang beats teenager in brutal home attack

Hammer gang beats girl, 16

COURAGEOUS teenager Shannon James shows the horrific injuries she received when raiders stormed her home and battered her with a crowbar and a sledgehammer.

The A-level student needed plastic surgery and 22 stitches when she underwent a two-hour operation on her appalling head wounds.
Shannon, her mum and stepdad Graham Childs, 47, had gone to bed before the balaclava-clad burglars dressed in black burst in to their home claiming to be cops.
The brave 16-year-old charged at one of the thugs after they attacked her mum Rebecca, 42 — but they hit her twice on the head.
When Shannon came to, she tried to call 999 on her blood-splattered mobile while Rebecca — who was also struck in the head and hand — fled to alert neighbours.
Shannon said: “All I remember is screaming, ‘I’m going to die.”
The thugs left empty-handed, but the family has offered a £12,000 reward to help catch them.
Shannon has nerve damage and needs sleeping pills after the attack at her home in Horsham, West Sussex, last August. She said: “I still get nightmares.”
Sussex Police are still hunting the thugs, and believe they may have used a green VW Polo. Rebecca said: “These people need to be caught — they are dangerous.”