A Bay woman who saw her husband "viciously" beaten and stabbed by masked intruders is too scared to return home. The attack happened on the Maniatutu Rd cattle farm of Maggie and Peter Bentley near Te Puke at about 6am on Saturday.
Intruders wearing masks and hoodies brandished a gun and jumped Mr Bentley as he left the house for work. They beat him with a crowbar and stabbed him with a knife, leaving the 54-year-old in a serious condition in Tauranga Hospital.
During the attack, a gun was fired and Mrs Bentley fled the house to surrounding bush with a phone to call for help.
Still badly shaken by the weekend's ordeal, Mrs Bentley told the Bay of Plenty Times she could not bring herself to return to the farm. She is staying with friends.
"I cannot go back and live in my house knowing that those bastards are out there.
"The beating of Peter was vicious and they didn't want anything, they just wanted to beat. They didn't ask for anything," she said.
It had been a normal Saturday morning before the attack. Mr Bentley had been getting ready to go to work at the family's paving business in Rotorua.
Mrs Bentley, aged in her mid-50s, relives how the attack began as her husband was getting into his car, which was parked about 50 metres from their house.
The intruders then continued to beat her husband as he struggled back to the house.
"Peter was yelling and screaming at me to warn me about what was happening," she said.
Meanwhile, her husband's only thought was to get inside, find his gun and fire a warning shot.
The couple had previously discussed what they would do in just such a situation.
"He managed to find it (the gun) but in the struggle someone fell on the gun and it went off." No one was injured by the shot.
When Mrs Bentley realised what was happening, her first reaction was to help her husband.
"Then I stopped and thought 'that's silly, they're going to attack me' and then there will be two of us down - because my husband will want to protect me and that will cause more damage."
So she grabbed the phone and escaped through the another door out into the bush.
The couple's 22-year-old nephew, who was visiting from Sweden for 10 months, was woken up when Mr Bentley and the intruders crashed around inside and the gun went off.
The nephew was just getting out of bed when one of the intruders ran up the stairs to his bedroom and poked a sawn-off .303 rifle gun in his face.
The 22-year-old diffused the situation by snatching the intruders weapon and "running like hell to the bush".
The two men left taking the family's four-wheel drive and Mr Bentley's gun with them.
However, the two men ditched the vehicle and the gun near the end of the driveway when they came up against a barrier arm about 300-metres from the house.
"There was a barrier arm down the driveway because we had stock grazing. They must have presumed it was locked but it wasn't."
Mr Bentley was in Tauranga Hospital with head injuries, severe bruising and knife wounds. A scan carried out yesterday showed his condition had only slightly improved.
The couple's nephew was treated for minor injuries at the scene.
Tauranga police Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Turner said: "It appears the victim has disturbed the two offenders who were in the farm implement shed."
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