A British woman has died after a horrific attack, during which robbers burned her with a blow torch before shooting her and stuffing a plastic bag down her throat in eastern South Africa.

Sue Howarth, 64, and her husband Robert Lynn, 66, were asleep when they were attacked in their farmhouse near the trout fishing village of Dullstroom around 3am on Sunday morning, said Johan Pieterse, the manager of the security company that found the couple.

“The attackers broke into the house through a window and demanded cash,” he told The Telegraph “There was no money in the house so they used a blow torch on them.”

“Mr Lynn was stabbed in his stomach, hands and neck. Mrs Howarth was burned on her face.”

The attackers forced the couple into their pickup truck before driving them away from the farm.

Mr Lynn was shot in the neck and dumped in the bush with a black plastic bag tied over his head.

When the attackers drove off, he stumbled towards the road between the small towns of between Belfast and Stoffberg, where he found Mrs Howarth, unconscious with a bag shoved down her throat.