Single mum woke to find burglar at end of her bed

Ffyona McKeating, in her underwear, wrestled with the burglar in a desperate attempt to protect her children and her property after she woke, shocked, to find him standing by the bed.

“I’ll remember the ghoulish look on his face for as long as I live,” said the mother-of-two. “I was in bits after he eventually ran out. But at the time I wasn’t going to let him hurt my children or take my stuff.”

Ffyona, who runs cosmetic clinics in Preston and London, was asleep at home in Walton-le-Dale when intruders got in through the back door of her home and began scouring rooms for valuables.

“I’m a light sleeper and I was woken about four o’clock by a noise. I saw this figure, dressed all in black and wearing gloves, standing at the side of my bed,” she said.

“I just sat bolt upright and screamed as loud as I could. He had hold of my laptop and that has all my business files on – in fact everything is on there.

“I was absolutely terrified. I couldn’t believe a burglar would enter a bedroom while someone is sleeping.

“When I screamed he just looked horrified. I don’t think he could believe anyone could scream so loud.

“I jumped out of bed and shouted at him to put the laptop down. But he didn’t, he just stood there looking at me.

“Then I heard my two-year-old crying in her bedroom. I felt sick. My kids are my whole life.”

Ffyona then became involved in a frightening stand-off with the raider when he refused her pleas to put down the laptop and leave.

“I stood between him and the bedroom door. I was just in my underwear, but he wasn’t going to get past me without a struggle. I didn’t know how many of them there were.

“I could see him looking at the door behind me. So I squatted as if I was going to start wrestling. Even then he wouldn’t drop the laptop. I was thinking ‘what if he goes for my kids?’ The youngest was still crying in her cot in the room opposite.

“We started wrestling. He had hold of the laptop and so did I. He just wouldn’t let go and so I started ramming it into his face.

“As we were fighting his phone dropped on the floor and so I kicked it under the bed. I just thought if I did get killed then at least the police would find it as evidence. I thought I was going to die.

“We fell to the floor and then he just got up and ran off downstairs and away. I grabbed my two-year-old and she was sobbing ‘Mummy there was a bad man in my room. He was staring at me.’ Fortunately, my four-year-old slept through it.

“I felt sick. In fact, after it was all over, I did vomit. It was that frightening and it has left me feeling very nervous. Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of friends and relatives who are volunteering to stay with me.”

CCTV footage from the house next door revealed there had been two raiders. One had been downstairs loading valuables into Ffyona’s car while the other was upstairs.

A police spokesman said two men had been questioned and one had been charged with a number of burglary and theft offences.