A Pakistani diplomat has revealed the horrifying ordeal he and his family were put through when intruders broke into his house and beat him.

At 3pm on January 5, Zubair Gull, federal commissioner for overseas Pakistanis, answered a knock on his door in Ewellhurst Road, Clayhall. Two men burst into his home and pushed him to his living room floor.

They knocked him unconscious by hitting him on the left temple with a length of metal pipe before repeatedly stamping on his head.

Fortunately for Mr Gull, his assailants were unaware his 75-year-old mother was also in the house. She began screaming and attempted to pull the two men off him, receiving several bruises to her back and hip.

The men then fled. The whole attack lasted just 13 seconds.

Mr Gull’s wife Fozeen, who returned home half an hour later to find her bloodied husband with the police, told the Recorder the family had got off lightly.

She said: “We were lucky she was there, because she must have spooked them.

“When I got in there was blood everywhere.

“There was so much blood on the floor, and they had only been in the house for 13 seconds.

“Imagine what they would have done if they had had 30.”

Mr Gull made his own opinion clear.

“They were targeting my head,” he explained.

“Stamping on it repeatedly. If they hadn’t been interrupted they would have killed me.”

And the attack has had a profound effect on the entire family.

Mrs Gull said: “My 17-year-old son is sleeping with a knife now in case they come back, my 15-year-old has a hammer and gave me the end of a crutch to put beside my bed.

“I’m not frightened to go out, but I’m scared to leave him home alone. I have to make sure someone is always here with him.

“We have lived here since 2005 and we’ve never had anything like this happen before.”

Mr Gull believes the attack, which began when an Asian woman knocked on the door before the two men, described as white, forced their way in, was politically motivated.

He says his work for Pakistan’s ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League, has made him a target, and claimed his brother had also been attacked recently at Heathrow airport.

Mr Gull’s attackers remain at large.

Police are appealing for information. Anyone who knows anything should call 101.