A terrified young mother was grabbed by the hair and had a meat cleaver held to her throat after two robbers burst into her Ipswich flat, a court has heard.

The 22-year-old woman was told she would be stabbed if she screamed and at one stage heard one of the men say to the other: “Don’t trust the bitch. Stab the bitch, cut her up,” Ipswich Crown Court was told.

During the incident the woman, who was alone in her flat in Winchester Way, Ipswich, while her partner and three-year-old daughter were out, was told that if her daughter had been at home they would have taken her and sold her abroad, said Robert Sadd, prosecuting.

Before the court was Ali Todd, 23, of Woodcock Road, Ipswich, who admitted robbing the woman on March 4 and asked for eight offences of burglary to be taken into consideration.

Jailing him for 10 years, Recorder Guy Ayers said; “This was a horrific crime and is the sort of crime that people fear above almost all others. Here was somebody in her own home.

“She was alone – fortunately her child wasn’t with her.

“This was an utterly, utterly appalling incident and it has had a huge impact on her,” said the judge. Mr Sadd told the court that the woman had answered a knock at the door of her first-floor flat at around 2.30pm and had been confronted by Todd and another man who asked to see her partner.

Todd asked if he could ring her partner about some money he was owed and when the woman turned away to get her phone Todd and the other man had forced their way in.

Todd was holding a meat cleaver and had grabbed hold of the woman’s hair and told her “scream and I’ll stab you.”

Holding the meat cleaver to her throat he had taken her upstairs and had demanded to know where she kept her money.

Todd had searched the flat and had put some items – including a mobile phone and £400 cash – in a rucksack and he and the other men left after their was a knock at the door.

Mr Sadd said Todd was identified by the victim from a YouTube rap clip.

Neil Saunders, for Todd, said his client realised he was facing a long spell in prison and knew that he would have to change his ways if he wasn’t going to spend long periods in prison in the future,