A BRAVE mother chased two masked burglars out of her home after she found them at the top of her stairs.

Fran Howard, who is 4ft 9 inches, screamed at the burglars, ran after them down the stairs and chased them out of her home in Woodfarm Road, Malvern.

The mother-of-two, who hails from Hong Kong, is already called "Ninja" by work colleagues and now husband Allan thinks the name will catch on,

Mrs Howard, aged 55, was off sick from work when the raid took place at around 11.45am on Tuesday.

She said: "I walked out of my bedroom door and there were two men with balaclavas, gloves and beanies.

"As soon as I saw them I shouted. I chased them down.

"Nothing like this has happened before. My son, Oliver, said: 'Mum you are as hard as nails.'

"I ran to the landline, rang 999 and said 'I've been burgled'. I was shaking. I'm still shaking now just telling the story.

"This morning I woke up at 3am thinking 'what if?'I was scared to go to the toilet at night.

"If I knew they were burglars I wouldn't have done what I did. I would have locked the door."

Mrs Howard, who has lived at her home for 31 years, said she heard the doorbell ringing before finding the burglars and rang her husband to check if he was expecting a delivery.

Mrs Howard, who works as a revenue officer in Pershore, left her bedroom after hearing footsteps upstairs and encountered the masked men.

After she chased the men downstairs, she saw that the glass in the conservatory door had been smashed.

The couple have now installed a new door with deadlocks in the kitchen and boarded up the smashed conservatory door window.

They think that there were four burglars overall with two testing the front door and another two entering through the rear of the house.

Both of Mrs Howard's sons are in the army and were surprised to hear about the burglary.

Mr Howard, aged 71, was in Tewkesbury when the burglary happened.

The two burglars Mrs Howard confronted were described as well-built, about 5ft 10 inches tall and wearing tracksuits.

Anyone with information can ring police on 101 quoting incident number 241s of Tuesday, March 21.