The mother of baby twins mauled by a fox as they slept spoke of her fears for the girls as they recovered in hospital yesterday.

Nine-month-olds Lola and Isabella Koupparis were attacked in their cots at around 10 p.m. on Saturday night in Homerton, east London.

Police said the little girls were in a "serious but stable condition" at the Royal London Hospital.

They both suffered arm wounds and one is believed to have facial injuries.

Their mother Pauline said yesterday: "We're just worried about them and making sure they're OK. One is really good and one is not so good."

She spoke as she left her smart three-storey terrace just after 10.30 a.m. yesterday, carrying a packet of nappies and looking anxious.

The fox apparently entered through a door on the ground floor which had been left open because of the heat.

The animal attacked the twins in their upstairs room as their parents, Nick and Pauline, were reportedly watching television.

Their four-year-old brother, Max, who was also sleeping upstairs, was not hurt.

Ms Koupparis described the incident as "like a living nightmare".

She told radio station BBC London: "It's something I would never expect to happen to anybody, let alone happen to my beautiful girls."

She had been watching Britain's Got Talent on television when she heard the girls crying, she said.

"I went into the room and I saw some blood on Isabella's cot," she said. "I thought she'd had a nosebleed.

"I put on the light and I saw a fox and it wasn't even scared of me, it just looked me straight in the eye."

The infants were covered in blood and crying and she and her husband were "hysterical", she added.

Both girls have undergone surgery, she said.

Lola, who looked "dreadful" but was doing well, had a number of facial injuries and some puncture marks on her arm and Isabella suffered injuries to her arm and was receiving special care, their mother added.

A shocked neighbour of the family, said: "We've all got foxes at the bottom of our gardens. Some people have got two or three living in their garden. They're all as bold as brass. You walk out into the garden and you have to shoo them away."

Asked if she was worried about the safety of her own little boy, who is a similar age to the twins, she said: "Of course, it was shocking."

Michael Parra, 48, a health trainer, who has lived in the street for six years, said police had been going from house to house after the attack, warning residents not to leave their doors open.

He said: "Police told us that in the hot weather we should keep our doors closed for our safety. We see a lot of foxes around here. They're always in our garden. Something should be done about them. I would love to get them out of here.

They're really a nuisance and a danger. They've terrorised our garden."

He said he had complained about the fox problem to the local council but nothing had changed.

He added: "I wonder how much they can do about the situation. I think the foxes are getting bolder. They almost go up to you. I've got fearful myself. They've gone towards my dog too."

After the attack pest controllers set fox traps in the back garden.

Last night a fox was discovered in one of the devices and was humanely destroyed by a vet early yesterday.

"The traps will remain in situ for the time being."

In 2002 Kent woman Sue Eastwood said her baby boy, Louis, was injured after a fox crept into their house while she slept.

Neighbour Sav Remzi, 46, a music executive, said he heard one of the baby girls crying as she was carried to the ambulance after the attack.

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