A young girl's instant response to gun threat

Kia, then seven, sank her teeth so hard into his hand that the gunman told her mother later: "She's got a very strong bite!"

Jo Mooney, a 32-year-old trainee nurse, and taxi driver Jason Howard, 37, this week re-lived for the Observer the terrifying ordeal they and Kia underwent when an armed gang raided Jo's Ninfield Road home.

They were speaking after members of the gang were sentenced at Brighton Crown Court. The ring leader was given life.

Jo's home was ransacked in a burglary in June lst year. Two days later the gang returned. They trussed mother and daughter so tightly with plastic ties that the marks remained for hours.

When Jason called, he was bound hand and foot as the gang systematically looted the house.

Gang members had guns, knives, machetes and mallets and threatened all three that they would kill them if they didn't co-operate.

Jo said: "We honestly thought we were all going to die that day.

"I was thinking 'This is it.'

"I tried to work out who should go first - whether Kia should witness her mother being shot..."

Jason said: "You just accept that you are going to die..."

After biting the ring-leader, Kia obeyed her mother's command to do everything the raiders told her.

"She was an absolute star that day. She did everything her mum told her. She showed complete trust in me."

Jo said: "I will never forget the words of the judge. He said at the end that if it had not been for the calmness and cool-headedness of a young mother there is no doubt that she saved the life of herself, her daughter and Jason Howard that day.

"I was already in tears by that stage. That just finished me..."

Jason, a 37-year-old self-employed taxi driver, lost his taxi for two months. He was unable to work at nights - his principal source of income. As a result, he and his wife were unable to meet their mortgage payments, lost their home and had to live in a caravan.

After 10 years of paying a mortgage they are now in rented accommodation.

He said: "I am very wary now; in whatever I do."

Jo said: "I was at the end of my second year studying nursing at the University of Brighton.

"I lost a stone in weight in two weeks - I have never put it back on. I lost time on my course. I had to fight to stay on."

Jo said of Kia's father, Paul Bugler: "It affected him, too. You cannot imagine a father's anger to people who would do that to a little girl.

"He's been a rock. He has come with me every day to the trial.

"Under the circumstances, our daughter is doing terribly well. She is only eight years old. Who knows how she will react in the future?

"Myself and Paul are incredibly proud of the bravery and resilience she has shown, both at the time and since then.

"This will take a lot of love and support and reassurance over the years.

"Every night since then she needs to know exactly what I am doing and where I am going because she is scared I might be taken away from her.

"Doing what they did to Jason and myself is bad enough. We are adults.

But a seven year-old girl who is only just starting out in life - you can't put into words the contempt I feel for what they did to her.

"Whatever life sentence they are given is nothing compared with the life sentence myself, Kia and Jason will have as a result.

"That's never going to go away..."