That’s when every parent’s worst nightmare came true.
CCTV footage reveals an intruder who broke into a family’s suburban home in the middle of the night to attack his eight-year-old daughter as she sleeps in her loft bed.
A few minutes later, the girl wakes up to find the stranger touching her arm and back and whispering to her. She said to him, “Stop it, you’re scaring me. To leave.”
She steps back at first, but then climbs up the ladder to her raised bunk to whisper in her ear.
Once again she told him: “Stop it, you’re scaring me. To leave.”
Eventually, he disappears into the darkness as the girl’s mother is awakened by the sound of her daughter’s voice. He finds the girl distressed but thinks her disturbing story about her is just the result of a bad dream.
Until he watched footage from their home’s new CCTV camera the next day.
And, horrified and disgusted, he immediately called the carabinieri.
“I felt nauseous and angry at the same time when I first saw that my CCTV had caught someone right outside my son’s bedroom,” Mom said this week, recalling this moment.
“I expected to reassure her by showing her that there was nothing, only to find that her nightmare was our reality.
“I can’t express how relieved he is to have the cameras installed. I hate to think my daughter may have had this experience, just because no one believed her.
The girl’s heartbreaking evidence emerged after 33-year-old intruder Jamie Phillip Mongoo pleaded guilty to home burglary and common assault this week in a Geraldton courthouse.
The idea of a stranger being in the house and climbing into his bed seemed so impossible to me that I was sure it was a bad dream.
Police say Mongoo broke through an open door, woke the sleeping girl, whispered to her and touched her arm before leaving Strathalbyn’s home without stealing anything on June 2.
Telling the full story of the “deeply surreal and disturbing” experience that night, the victim’s mother – who wishes to remain anonymous – revealed how she continues to haunt the family and how they are now much more vigilant in closing doors.
She said her daughter’s memories remained clear and vivid.
“She said she was awakened by a man who touched her arm and back. She said ‘stop it, you’re scaring me. Go away, ‘said her mother.
“He said he got off the ladder and stayed in his room before going back up. He said he came and told her things, but he couldn’t go back to her. don’t understand it.
“He then told him ‘stop it, I don’t like it, go away’. Then she got out again and left.
The mother believes that the fact that her daughter slept in a loft bed made it more difficult for Mongoo to reach her. She thinks she could have easily passed him in the hallway after waking up to her daughter’s voice.
“I woke up and called to ask if she was okay. I don’t know how close I was to bumping into Mr. Mongoo in our corridor, but he would have been very close.
The mother said it was not uncommon for her daughter to wake up from a bad dream and that night slept with her for the rest of the night to comfort her.
“The idea of a stranger being in the house and climbing into his bed seemed so impossible that I was sure it was a bad dream,” she said.
Only after work the next day did the mother check the footage from her new security camera.
Mongoo was arrested five days later.
Although his intentions remain unclear, wondering about it worries the girl’s mother.
“I can’t speak for him, but I feel uncomfortable when I know there were valuables that could have been easily taken, but instead he chose to go to my daughter’s room and wake her up,” she said.
He said his family was starting to rebuild their sense of security after the accident.
“Home should be a safe place and in the past, when my children woke up with bad dreams, I held them in my arms and told them they were safe. It pisses me off that it’s hard to tell now, “she said.
“It has taken and will continue to require hard work to rebuild their sense of security at home.
“Even though my daughter is finally sleeping in her own bed again, she hasn’t become herself again. As she went to bed tonight, she told me that she was still feeling worried and thinking about what had happened.
The mother is extremely proud of her daughter’s courage and the way she is coping.
Her message to other parents: “Teach children how to ask for help and how to defend themselves”.
“I never thought it could happen to my family, but it did and, despite the trauma, I feel particularly proud of my daughter and the way she reacted.”
Mongoo pleaded guilty on Monday to more than 20 counts related to the Strathalbyn burglary and other cases. He was remanded in custody to appear again in court in November.