A Coledale mum who was allegedly robbed in her home at knifepoint while her children hid in another room has told how her daughter “saved it all” with a tense 20-minute call to 000.
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Mrs X* hasn’t slept since the early hours of Wednesday morning, when a stranger allegedly took his shoes off, stepped quietly inside her family’s Squires Crescent home, picked up a knife and began collecting things to take.
She woke to go to the bathroom about 1.30am and thought for a moment that a shadowy figure at the end of her bed was her husband. But then her husband rolled over in the bed beside her and she realised she didn’t know the man who stood within arms’s reach of him.
“He’s swung around and pointed the knife at me,” said Mrs X, who asked that her name not be published.
"I started screaming relentlessly. I didn’t know I could scream that way. You quite often have those nightmares, and you’re dreaming that something bad is happening and you can’t scream. I realise now that I can.”
The couple’s daughters, one an adult, the other aged nine, were sleeping in another bedroom as the intruder allegedly made his demands for passwords, electronics and money.
Unseen by her mother, the eldest daughter heard the disturbance, got up and picked up the little girl. She has since told her mother she placed the girl in a cupboard and closed the door after telling her, “whatever happens, you’ve got to stay in the cupboard and not move”.
The adult daughter spent 20 minutes on the phone with a 000 operator, describing what she was hearing and resisting the urge to intervene.
“I was sitting in bed, hoping she’d heard me screaming,” Mrs X said.
“But I was also hoping she didn’t come out of her room.
“She’s spoken to me since and she said that sometimes she could hear my screaming and sometimes she couldn’t, and she got scared when she couldn’t because she didn’t know what happened.
“My daughter’s my hero really. She saved it all.”
Mrs X noticed a faint light coming through her hallway, then heard the sound of a car door being quietly closed.
She tilted her bedroom blind a little, looked out the window and saw a police van outside.
“I started screaming and ran to the front door to try and unlock it,” she said. “I couldn’t unlock it and he [the intruder] was standing behind me with a knife.
“When he saw police he told me to shut up and get back in my room – and that was the last I saw him.”
Police have charged an 18-year-old man, Isaiah Campbell, of Minto, with aggravated entering of a dwelling, armed robbery and entering a vehicle without consent.
Police will allege they found the shoeless Campbell hiding in an unlocked car parked at a nearby home, allegedly carrying two Apple Iphones.
According to a police account of events, considered in Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday as Campbell unsuccessfully sought release on bail, a senior constable shone a torch light on the front glass doors of the Mrs X’s home in the moments before police swooped. One officer will allege he saw Campbell holding a knife centimetres from Mrs X’s back as he marched her from one room to another. The officer looked directly at Campbell before Campbell fled, police allege.
Ms X praised the response from Wollongong Police on the night, and since.
“Even the next night, I rang the police officer, because I’m scared,” she said. “I’m scared during the day but in the night …
“They actually came out and sat with me, just to assure me that he had been locked away.”
“Austinmer police, they’ve called us this morning to let us know that they’re increasing patrols and that, ‘you might not see us, but we’re there’.”
The intruder was able to get inside the home through a sliding glass door, which was left partly ajar in consideration of the family’s elderly dog.
Mrs X now urges friends and residents to lock their doors.
“We live in quite an exposed area, with streetlights that illuminate our house, and we thought we were OK,” she said.
“It’s that old saying – you don’t ever think it can happen to you. I know that there are so many people that leave their doors unlocked. I would say 80 per cent of people I’ve spoken to say ‘we never lock our door, but we’re going to now’.”
Forensic officers dusted a collection of the family’s Christmas presents, which were allegedly found lined up on their back verandah.
Campbell is to remain behind bars for Christmas, next due at Wollongong Local Court on February 27.
The family’s table is filled with flowers from well-wishers; they say they have been well-supported by their community, and are grateful for this.
But for Mrs X, sleep will take a while to come.
“This morning I just lay in bed waiting for the light to come through the window,” she said. “I was just relieved that nighttime had turned to day.”
Angela Thompson
Proudly Illawarra Mercury since 2008; these days covering crime and justice issues. UOW alum. Thrilled by the chase and sobered by some of the things I see and hear when I stand still - sometimes in the same day. ang.thompson@austcommunitymedia.com.au
Proudly Illawarra Mercury since 2008; these days covering crime and justice issues. UOW alum. Thrilled by the chase and sobered by some of the things I see and hear when I stand still - sometimes in the same day. ang.thompson@austcommunitymedia.com.au
