Terrified mum reveals moment she caught man trying to snatch daughter, 6, from her bed in middle of the night
The mum-of-four, 32, discovered the shoeless intruder lurking over her daughter at 2.30am on Mother's Day in Armagh, Northern Ireland
A MUM woke up to find a shoeless intruder trying to abduct her six-year-old girl.
The man had taken off her daughter’s blanket and told her: “Come with me.”
It’s thought he got into the Craigavon, Co , home through an upstairs window early on Saturday.
The mum said: “It could have been a very different kind of Mother’s Day.”
The woman revealed how he was “hovering over my daughter, his hands down beside her”, and added: “I went to scream for my partner as I saw him moving but I couldn’t get it out, couldn’t scream.”
Specialist cops are set to interview the little girl after the terrifying incident in the early hours of Saturday.
It’s thought the man, aged around 28, entered the house in Drumbeg estate in Craigavon by a bedroom window.
The 32-year-old mum said she was in her own room with her two daughters, aged four and six, in the same bed.
At around 2.30am, as her partner was asleep on the sofa downstairs, she woke from her slumber.
She said her six-year-old, who was at the bottom of the bed, was moving her feet and the woman opened her eyes.
She explained: “I was lying on my back with my head tilted down towards the floor, not fully awake. I was just looking at these black socks and blue jeans, this man’s feet at the side of the bed. He had no shoes on.
I thought to myself as I was wakening up, blue jeans? My partner doesn’t wear jeans....
“I thought to myself as I was wakening up, blue jeans? My partner doesn’t wear jeans. I knew at that moment there was somebody in my bedroom.”
She said she knew she was going to have to open her eyes wide although fear had gripped her.
“I was still lying there. I said ‘who are you?’ and he moved very slightly, then froze. He didn’t look startled, he looked as if he was thinking I was dreaming.
“I couldn’t see him clearly but he didn’t turn to me or look into my face, just slightly moved his hands. He tried to stay as still as possible.”
She told us the man – his head shaved, a “dirty cream shirt” – began moving towards the top of the bed.
She said: “He backed off from the child and kind of walked sideways, towards me. I could only see the side of him. He didn’t look up at me.
“I went to scream for my partner as I saw him moving but I couldn’t get it out, couldn’t scream.
“He moved up and towards the door. When he opened the door the light hit him and that’s when I saw him more clearly but I didn’t see his face, just the
side profile.
“He moved faster at the door.”
I went to scream for my partner as I saw him moving but I couldn’t get it out, couldn’t scream
The woman leapt from her bed as the man dashed from her bedroom. She said he “jumped the stairs” as she came behind him.
“I had only got my foot on the second stair and he was in a panic behind the curtain at my front door. He couldn’t get it open, he was pushing and grabbing.
“I was screaming then for my partner. When I got to the bottom, the man had pulled it open and was out. He then couldn’t get the gate open, he was in that much of a panic he didn’t think to unclip it - he pulled it, busted the clip.
“My partner heard me shouting and heard the gate busting outside. I was between the hallway and the front door and my partner had run out of the living room. I was shouting ‘man - bedroom - child’, just shouting.
“My partner ran outside but he didn’t know who or what he was looking for or what had happened.
“He was bare foot, he had no description, didn’t know anything. He came back to ask, put his shoes on and went out looking. He searched the whole area but didn’t see nothing, there was no one around."
As her partner tried to track down the intruder, the woman ran upstairs to check on her two girls and her 14-year-old son.
SHOELESS INTRUDER SAID 'COME WITH ME'
“One of my sons was staying at a friend’s house.
“I checked on the girls and the 14-year-old boy and that’s when I noticed his window was wide open.
“We think the man had used a ladder from next door’s house and climbed in through his bedroom window.”
She messaged friends, contacted police but let her children sleep.
When her six-year-old woke, she sat her down to ask what had happened – and a chilling description unfolded.
“I didn’t want to prompt anything so I just asked her,” said her mother.
“She said ‘you know them things you wear on your hands?' I said 'gloves?' She said the man had black gloves, she said ‘I could feel them on my arm, on my hair and my back. He was rubbing my hair and my arms and lifted my arms over my head he said – "come with me".’
“She said he just said it, didn’t whisper it.
"She said he said 'come with me' and 'you woke, mummy, and you shouted'."
The woman explained that the horrifying incident had caused the little girl to ask if the man would be coming back, and left her barely able to sleep on Saturday night.
IT WAS A 'PETRIFYING ORDEAL'
The mother said: “It was after 4am before she fell asleep. She is worried that if I’m not awake and a man comes in..."
Cops probing the incident have said it was a “petrifying ordeal” and that detectives are on the case.
The woman said she thinks the at-large intruder “might have been an opportunist who came in maybe to rob".
“But he passed phones and computers and TVs and lifted nothing. So I don’t know. He maybe wasn’t there for the child but had a look around and decided it was the child he was going to take.
“It was horrific. It keeps replaying and replaying in my head. I know the chances of him coming back are very slim but that fear is there now, it’s installed in me. I had an hour’s sleep last night.”
She said it was not lost on her that it was Mother’s Day weekend when she saw a stranger with his hands on her daughter.
“We are blessed in one way,” she said, “it could have been a very different kind of Mother’s Day.”
It’s believed one local person had seen a man being picked up by a car at around the time in question, information which could prove vital to cracking the disturbing case.
A spokesperson said: “This would be a petrifying ordeal for anyone but more so for a parent with children to protect.”
Most read in news
Appealing for witnesses, they added: “Someone out there must have seen something.
"There is a mum out there who will no doubt lie awake worrying. Help us keep her safe. Help us find out who is responsible.”
Anyone who can help is asked to call cops on 101.