A CHESHIRE couple have spoken about their 48-hour kidnap ordeal at gunpoint in their holiday home.

Pat and Peter Yarwood, from Frodsham, were staying at their £300,000 luxury villa on the Costa Blanca.

Three gunmen, believed to be Romanian and in their early 20s, followed the couple to their home in Moraira after spotting them driving their red Jaguar.

Once the couple had eaten dinner the men broke into their home bursting into their living room as the retired couple played gin rummy.

The men told them in broken English that they knew the couple had money because they had seen their car earlier in the day.

Mr Yarwood went to his safe where he had 1,100 euros (£700) and £300 in cash but the thieves were not satisfied.

Mrs Yarwood, 70, said: "They terrorised us all night constantly pointing the guns at us and cocking them.

"When Peter tried to escape out of the back door they punched him in the face and kicked him. I was convinced we were going to die."

At dawn the gang decided to take Mr Yarwood, 68, to the bank to withdraw all the money from their account.

They bundled Mrs Yarwood into a van and drove to a derelict farmhouse an hour's drive away.

When she tried to escape she was punched in the back and kicked in the ribs before having her arms tied tightly behind her back.

Mr Yarwood was ordered at gunpoint to drive to Barclays and cash £500 in travellers cheques and take 20,000 euros (£12,000) out from his account and credit cards.

He said: "I was praying the bank would try and help and I wrote a note on the back of a cheque saying 'Please give me the money because someone has kidnapped my wife.'"

The bank manager called the police who sent plain clothes detectives to the scene.

Within hours a kidnap response unit was scrambled from Madrid along with a helicopter.

The bank said it was waiting for a delivery of cash to stall for time but by the afternoon the leader of the gang started to threaten that if he didn't see the money by the next day Mr Yarwood would not see his wife again.

But the men holding Mrs Yarwood became suspicious thinking there was police involved and fled.

Mrs Yarwood loosened the ropes and after spending the night in the open managed to find a road where she was rescued.

She said: 'I didn't stop praying for a minute. Thanks to the police and the quick thinking of my husband we got out alive."

The couple who have ran a guest house for the last 27 years have since identified one of the kidnappers from police photographs.

A police spokesman in Alicante said that the investigation is continuing.