Doncaster woman's terror after assault and attack on home by armed gang

Nikia Marshall, 24, was subjected to a frightening ordeal when the gang smashed their way into her house in Kirk Sandall, wrecking windows and destroying her huge flat screen TV and kitchen fittings and trashing her home from top to bottom before turning their attentions to her and punching her.

The gang wreaked havoc at the house in Brecks Lane – and a police probe is now under way.

Nikia, 24, is married to Mike Marshall, 37, whose cousin, Paris Fury, is the wife of heavyweight boxing champion, Tyson.

She claims she was hit and threatened during the violent raid and in an interview and making a plea to catch those responsible, she saud: “I’ve got haters, they’re jealous, and that could be a motive. These people are cowards and I want them to be caught.

“They’ve cost at least £100,000 worth of damage - How dare they do that? Who do they think they are coming into my house and doing that to me?”

The terrifying ordeal began when five men with crowbars surrounded her home in as she slept on the sofa.

Shocking CCTV footage shows them hurling what appears to be bricks at the upstairs windows before making their way inside, leaving chaos in their wake.

The former glamour model and TikTok influencer, who says she was ‘punched in the face’ by one man wielding a gun and now has panic buttons in every room, is adamant she won’t be driven out of her once immaculate white interior home - which she says will cost six figures to get it back to how it was.

“I’m a stubborn woman, I’m not leaving,” Nikia says. “I do feel on edge, I feel like I’m always on the lookout and that I’ve got to be prepared. It’s not a great way to live but I’m not leaving.

“They’ve disrespected me and I feel angry. I want to do anything to catch them.

“We know they’re English Gypsies, we’ve watched the CCTV footage back, you can hear them talking in Romanes language.

“I am accepting of all races and communities, I don’t want a fight, I want to live peacefully.

“They’re not driving me out of my house and I won’t change who I am.”

Nikia has a 300,000 TikTok fanbase and sprang to fame in 2021 when she fronted a six-part YouTube series called ‘I Married A Traveller’ with her roofer husband, who wasn’t at home at the time of the attack on Monday, May 20, at around 5.30pm.

The series gave a no-holds barred insight into every aspect of their lives from sex and dating rituals to their family rows and home life.

Nikia, who isn’t from a Romani Gypsy family like Mike, has said previously how she’s felt like an ‘outsider’.

Nikia revealed: “A lot of traveller girls call me a wannabe and other not nice names, such as prostitute and home wrecker.

“When I was living on a caravan site, I didn’t feel accepted,” and she added, “I didn’t want to be the same as them. I just was myself and a lot of people didn’t like it.”

And talking about her current work, she says: “I’m well-known for being an influencer online and I used to post controversial videos about what it’s like to be married to a gypsy but it was all tongue-in-cheek.

“It was three years ago and just a laugh - I don’t do that anymore.

“I think the community feel Michael ought to have married ‘his own’ and that I shouldn’t ‘try’ to be a gypsy.”

Referring to the perpetrators she added: “If they came back, I wouldn’t be frightened – I’d be ready to protect myself this time and call 999.”

Nikia, who works on content during the night, says she was catching up on sleep when the onslaught happened.

She says: “I do live-streams on TikTok – similar to QVC – and my main audiences are mums or women who are on their phones at night so that’s when I work.

“I was sleeping before a night shift when the attack started and all I heard was, ‘bang, bang, bang’, like a popping sound and smashing.

“I didn’t have a clue what was going on.

“The noise was all around me – they were smashing windows at the front, the side and the back at the same time.

“I had glass and brick all over me.

“It happened so quickly but I was really frightened – I had no idea who they were or whether they were going to kill me.”

Speaking about the moment she felt the blow to her head as she tried to escape, Nikia, who runs the fashion store Red Hot Ltd on TikTok, recalls: “The punch was so powerful; it was nothing like I’ve ever experienced before.”

“I can’t describe the pain – it was something else.

While Nikia tried to flee upstairs with her two eight-year-old chihuahuas, Bella and Princess, the men started smashing glass cabinet doors, ornaments, the TV, the cooker top, the toaster and anything else they could lay their hands on.

Nikia says one was armed with a crowbar and the other had a gun.

“I can’t even explain the fear at this point. I’m a mouthy girl but I was just completely speechless. I couldn’t say a thing,” she adds.

“They were smashing everything. I had glass and brick all over me.

“I was in bare feet and my feet were cut to shreds on the glass but I didn’t feel anything – it must have been the adrenaline.

“I just ran upstairs to get away – I knew I stood no chance against them.”

Once in the bedroom, Nikia opened the window with the plan of jumping out if the intruders followed her.

She says: “When I opened the window, I saw there were still four of them down there.

“I think they believed the house was empty because I heard one of them say, ‘f***, she’s in’. Then they started speaking to me and said, ‘that’s what happens when you try to be a big man’, and one looked up at me and said, ‘I’m going to come back and finish the job - and I’m going to shoot you.’”

The Furys, as well as former boxer Mike, who Nikia married a month after meeting at a professional fight four years ago where she was a ring girl, are well-known members of the gypsy community.

The couple feel some in the community aren’t accepting of Nikia, which Mike, who says he is now living a ‘settled way of life’, doesn’t understand.

He says: “We’ve suffered so much prejudice on both sides because Nikia isn’t a gypsy but she is so accepting of my culture.

“I can’t understand why people who don’t know us care about what we do so much.”

Nikia says the incident, which lasted just three minutes, felt like it ‘went on for an hour’.

“The first thing I did after they left was call Michael at 5:33pm and he was home by 5:35pm because he was just up the road on a roofing job,” she says.

And now the initial shock has worn off, Nikia says she feels incredibly angry: “I was scared, but now I’m angry,” she says.

“I feel disrespected. I work hard for my money – nothing I have is on finance, I pay for everything and I bought at least 98 per cent of everything they’ve smashed up in this house.

“A fight is the last thing I want.”

The couple, who moved from London to South Yorkshire a few months ago, are working closely with police and as well as installing panic buttons, they have 24-hour CCTV - while Michael is refusing to leave his wife’s side.

They’re determined the incident is not going to change the way they live and Nikia is refusing to leave her hometown.

“I’ll never leave,” she adds. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A South Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “Officers responded at 5.31pm on Monday 20 May to reports of an aggravated burglary at an address on Brecks Lane.

“It is reported that five males smashed the windows of a property before gaining entry and assaulting a 24-year-old woman.

"The victim was taken to hospital to be treated for injuries that are not believed to be serious.”

“A scene was established at Brecks Lane and enquiries are ongoing.”

Anyone with information can contact South Yorkshire Police on 101 or you can report information in confidence to CrimeStoppers on 0800 555 111.