A DISABLED woman screamed in terror after burglars broke into her home while she was alone in bed.

Quadriplegic Laura Bincliffe, who is paralysed from the chest down, woke to the sound of someone repeatedly ringing the doorbell of her bungalow in Pack Lane, Kempshott, at around 1.30pm last Wednesday.

The 41-year-old, who cannot move her legs and has limited movement in her arms, screamed and shouted at the men to leave her house after one of them claimed to be a builder delivering leaflets.

She said: “It was really frightening. The worst thing was that I could not do anything apart from scream. I just wanted them out of my house.”

The burglary took place while her husband John, 43, her full-time carer, was out doing food shopping.

Mrs Bincliffe had only returned to the house last Monday after a six-week stay at Basingstoke hospital, fighting an infection, and was catching up on sleep when the burglars struck.

She said: “I heard them come through the porch door and heard them flapping the letterbox of the main door. They knocked on the glass of the front door and I heard the front door opening.

“A man then put his head around my door and said, 'There's a lady in bed in here.'

“I turned around and asked him who he was. He said that it was all right, and that he was doing work on a neighbour's house and was just giving out leaflets.”

She said the man spotted her wheelchair and asked if she was disabled, before she screamed and shouted for them to get out of her house.

The raiders left with a safe containing £2,500 worth of jewellery and important documents, including passports, birth certificates and the couple's marriage certificate.

Mr Bincliffe returned to the house around 2.20pm and called the police. Officers later found the safe discarded in a field in Dummer, and while some of the documents were recovered, the jewellery was gone.

Mrs Bincliffe suffered the spinal cord injury on March 25, 1999, when she was a passenger in a car that hit a roadside barrier at junction six of the M3 and landed on its roof.

Her father Lawrence Aldridge (ok), who was driving the car, died instantly in the crash. Mrs Bincliffe spent 14 months in hospital after breaking her neck and needs a wheelchair to get around.

Reacting to the raid, Mr Bincliffe said: “These people are scum. Before this happened, going to the supermarket while Laura was sleeping would have been a normal occurrence. Now I feel someone has to be with Laura when I go to the supermarket. I shouldn't have to feel like that in my own home.”

Officers are linking the burglary to another that took place around the same time on Wednesday at a house in Buckskin Lane, Buckskin. Jewellery and cash were stolen in that burglary.

Officers particularly want to hear from three people, who may have witnessed the burglars in Pack Lane at around 1.40pm - a male jogger, a cyclist and a driver of a silver Mercedes.

PC Mark Pullman, of Basingstoke police, said: “Burglary is always a horrible crime but this incident is particularly distressing.

“The offenders have broken into this woman's home and even had the nerve to engage in conversation with her before stealing a safe.”

Anyone with information can contact PC Pullman, at Basingstoke police station, on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.