A boy aged just 10 bravely spoke up as a drunken robber threatened his father with an axe, begging him "Please don't kill my daddy!".
Luke Gill, 10, was caught up in a terrifying home break-in alongside his father, Colin, and sister, Eloise, at their home near Peterborough.
Three men armed with axes and a sawn-off shotgun smashed through a glass door to break into the house, before taking the terror-stricken family hostage and demanding cash and jewellery.
Eloise, 13, was dragged, sobbing, from her bedroom to join her father and brother downstairs, where all three were threatened at gunpoint in an ordeal lasting 20 minutes.
While one of the men levelled his shotgun at Colin's head, the other approached the father-of-six with an axe. Colin, who runs a company which exports used lorries, recalls that the axeman 'smelt of drink' and appeared to be 'on edge'.
"He did not believe there was no safe, and he started coming at me," Colin told the Peterborough Telegraph.
It was at this point that courageous Luke shouted: "Please don't kill my daddy!" three times at the armed gang.
The robbers eventually fled with thousands of pounds in foreign currency, a £2,500 watch and an iPhone.
Referring to the thieves as 'scum', Colin added: "Anyone who points a gun at a pair of kids is not a man."
Detective Constable Stuart Cooper, of the Cambridgeshire Police, described the incident as 'extremely distressing for the victim and his two children' and appealed particularly to dog walkers who may have been using a popular route near the house to come forward.
"Anyone who does use this road and may have seen a vehicle or men acting suspiciously should get in touch."