Teenage thug Jordan Holt winked at family and friends as he was locked up for his part in a terrifying raid in which a couple in their 80s were bound with tights and held at knifepoint.

Jordan Holt, 17, was one of two hooded raiders who smashed their way into the rural, detached and gated property in Wilmington and subjected the pair to what was described as a horrendous ordeal.

Maidstone Crown Court heard both were thrown to the floor. The 83-year-old woman’s hands were tied, while her husband, aged 86, was bound at his hands and ankles and dragged by his feet across the kitchen floor.

One of the raiders brandished a 5-6in knife while they repeatedly demanded to know the location of a safe during the night-time break-in.

They also asked if the couple had a gun and ammunition.

Having ransacked the house, mindlessly smashing ornaments and damaging furniture as they did so, the raiders fled in the couple’s £65,000 Jaguar XF.

They stole jewellery and a £12,000 Rolex Oyster watch, snatched from the man’s wrist.

The frightened pensioners were left tied up, with the woman, who suffers from a spinal injury inflicted during the Second World War, face down on the floor.

Their phone line had been ripped from the wall, preventing them from calling for help.

After they managed to free themselves, the female victim fled her home and flagged down a passing motorist.

She later told police that she had kept talking to herself throughout the raid because she did not want to break down.

“I was frightened for my life and he had a knife,” she said.

DNA matching Holt was later found on tights used to tie up the couple.

Holt was on bail for another burglary committed when he was just 15 and had been released from a 10-month detention and training order for offences of theft, handling stolen goods and racially aggravated public disorder just weeks earlier.

He has ADHD and Asperger’s and had not been taking his medication as it was causing problems with his sleep and appetite.

Holt, of Elm Road, Dartford, admitted aggravated burglary at the home in Birchwood Road in September last year.

He also admitted burglary and two offences of theft from a property in Claremont Road, Hextable, near Swanley, in September 2014.

Sentencing him to five years and four months in a young offenders’ institution, Recorder Mark van der Zwart said Holt and his older accomplice had “terrorised” the couple.

Referring to when the woman had injured her back when a church she was in was struck by a V2 bomb, he told Holt: “She had survived quite literally the worst that the Nazis could throw at her in the Second World War and she and her husband had led a law-abiding life.

“You shattered the peace that they then had and were looking forward to having in their home that they had worked for for many years.”

Recorder van der Zwart said it was “as plain as day” that the house had been targeted because of its location and size.

He added that the couple, who both suffered bruising but did not need hospital treatment, would “never be the same again”.

He said: “One can only imagine the true shock and terror that elderly couple felt when you and your colleague subjected them to that terrorising ordeal.

“They speak of the fear and confusion that they continue to have as they go about their home and which they no longer wish to live in because of you.”

“They speak of the fear and confusion that they continue to have as they go about their home and which they no longer wish to live in because of you” - Recorder Mark van der Zwart

The recorder said it did not matter to any great extent that Holt “may not” have been the one wielding the knife during the raid.

His accomplice, said to be 26 and not long released from prison, was not traced. Holt claimed to have only met him that day.

None of the property stolen was recovered. That included the couple’s Jaguar, which had been bought to replace another stolen in a previous raid.

The recorder told Holt that, had he been 18 years old, the starting point for his sentence before taking mitigation into account would have been 12 years.

However, sentencing guidelines regarding juveniles mean age, both in chronological terms and with regards to maturity, has to be considered and can reduce that term by up to three-quarters.

Recorder van der Zwart added that, while he accepted Holt was “sincerely sorry”, his troubled home life and erratic education offered no excuse.

As Holt will only serve half his sentence behind bars, less time spent on remand, he is unlikely to be transferred to an adult prison at 21.

He winked to family and friends sitting in the public gallery as he left the dock.