The woman, aged 65, was alone at home when the 19-year-old men — high on alcohol and drugs — forced a window and embarked on a frenzied attack. Armed with a knife and screwdriver, they bound and gagged their victim, forced her on to a bed and raped her several times.

She was “crippled with terror” and suffered “horrendous” blows to the face before her young attackers fled with jewellery, cash and a mobile phone.

The woman had passed out from the pain and regained consciousness to find that she was alone. She dragged herself to a telephone, called the police and was taken to hospital for trauma and severe facial injuries.

Seven months later the grandmother was at Teesside Crown Court to see David Humphrey and Lee Beazley jailed for life yesterday.

Judge Peter Fox, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, told them that their actions ranked “among the worst cases ever committed on Teesside”.

“Gripped by greed and lust you subjected her to a terrible ordeal, one of shocking and painful humiliation in her own home, which you went on to plunder and defile,” he said. “You discharged your actions without any hint of humanity towards your victim.”

Their victim, who cannot be identified, watched the proceedings intently. She said later that she had wanted to “find some closure . . . It was the first time I had seen their faces. They did a terrible thing but I try not to think about them. It doesn’t help the healing process.”

The woman said that she had moved back into the house where the attack happened, in an affluent Middlesbrough suburb, because “they were not going to take that from me.

“What I was subjected to affects me every day. I’ll never be the same again. At times I feel I am just existing, not living, but you have got to get on with your life. You can’t put everything on hold.

“I take things a day at a time, knowing I have the support of family, friends and the police. I get flashbacks and I’m nervous when I go out, but I’m determined not to let that stop me. I’m determined to get on with my life.”

She had been making a cup of tea before going to bed when Humphrey and Beazley struck. They had drunk six litres of cheap wine, smoked cannabis and taken amphetamines and heroin-substitute tablets before setting out on cycles to break into cars or garden sheds. Jeremy Richardson, for the prosecution, said: “The ordeal suffered by the complainant was utterly terrifying for her. At several stages of the physical and sexual assault she thought she was going to die.” Humphrey, of Marton, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty to three charges of rape, and Beazley, of Hemlington, near Middlesbrough, admitted two rapes. Both admitted aggravated burglary and threatening the woman with a knife.

They were told that they would serve a minimum of six years in prison before becoming eligible for parole. They were placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Humphrey told police that he was sickened by his actions. Beazley, the court was told, regretted his “despicable and inexcusable” behaviour.

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