Former Atomic Kitten Kerry Katona has been recovering at the home of friends after she and her baby daughter were held hostage by burglars. The 26-year-old and her husband, taxi driver Mark Croft, 36, were watching a film in the early hours of Monday when masked men broke into their £1.5 million Cheshire home.
After ordering the young mum into a locked room with five-month-old Heidi the intruders marched Mark through the house so that he could point out where valuables were kept. The robbers then made off with £150,000 of property, including Kerry's engagement and wedding rings and a top of the range BMW.
Shortly after 12.30am, the family managed to escape and raise the alarm. Kerry's publicist Max Clifford said the ordeal came after a particularly happy time for the singer.
"Everything was going so well for her until this happened," he said. "She'd only been in the house a few months, she had got married and the baby had comes along but now this. She is saying she can't go back to the house now."
Fortunately Kerry's two older daughters - Molly, five, and four-year-old Lilly-Sue, from her marriage to ex-Westlife singer Brian McFadden - were staying with relatives of their father at the time.