Terrified mother woke up by burglar standing over her in ‘Out Of The Shining’ scene

A ‘confused’ burglar spotted a woman sleeping after breaking into her home in a terrifying ordeal that has been likened to horror film ‘The Shining’.

Homeless Simon Bailey, 47, sneaked into his victim’s home in broad daylight, believing his former colleague and friend – who previously owned the address – was tied up upstairs.

Instead the ‘terrified’ mother, who had been lying on the sofa due to illness, woke up to her dogs barking and saw Bailey looming over her, Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard.

The victim, who worked with schizophrenic people, knew Bailey had taken drugs because of a “terrifying” look in his eyes, but managed to remain calm and get him out of the house before her children arrived home.

In her victim impact statement, she told the court how she managed to lure him onto her veranda before slamming the door and locking him out, at which point he angrily started shouting ‘let me get in’ and calling her a ‘b’. ***H*’.

Prosecutor Omar Majid said the victim called 999 and asked for Bailey’s full name, which he gave believing she was on the phone with a friend. She heard banging noises outside, the gate was bolted and locked, but Bailey jumped over it into the backyard and looked at her through the kitchen window and tried the back door.

Bailey then started kicking the French doors and eventually pushed his way through before going upstairs. The victim locked one of her dogs in the cage and grabbed her other before hiding under her kitchen table and whispering information to the call handler.

She said she heard Bailey banging upstairs before she told him: “Please don’t hurt me, I’m a mother.” The court heard Bailey did not cause any physical harm to his victim, and she managed to lock herself in the upstairs bathroom, before eventually returning downstairs and fleeing to her neighbour’s house – but was followed by Bailey.

Staffordshire Police arrived at the address 20 minutes later and found 47-year-old Bailey sitting on a wall and looking extremely agitated and paranoid on arrival.

Thinking he was on drugs, they placed him in the back of a police car and took him in for questioning. During an interview, Bailey told them he believed a friend of his was tied up in the house.

The court heard Bailey had been released on license before the incident and he has 45 convictions for 109 offenses dating back to 1999, including grievous bodily harm, affray, possession of a knife in public and criminal damage.

Scott Ashdown, mitigating, said: ‘In a state of being off medication and as a withdrawal symptom he believed his friend was tied up in this house upstairs.

‘He didn’t target the victim, you could say he targeted the address. He wasn’t thinking about hurting her, his thoughts were elsewhere. He had no sinister intentions for the individual. His actions were impulsive and without any real rational thought.”

Bailey, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to burglary. Judge Michael Maher sentenced Bailey to three years in prison. He will be issued a permit once he is released.

He told the defendant: ‘This is a very unusual case for a burglary. In his unhinged state, he thought his friend was tied up upstairs and you thought there was a motorcycle in the driveway. Fortunately, none of the victim’s three children were present. She woke up to find you at the end of her couch – that must be every household’s nightmare.

‘She showed enormous courage. I listened to that 999 call and she was scared. You shouted to let her in and when she wouldn’t let you in, you banged on the door and kicked the patio doors, and when that didn’t work you smashed the patio doors with a garden ornament. Her pleas to you fell on deaf ears. You pulled the bedroom door off its hinges, it must have felt like she was in The Shining.

“She fled the house to a neighbor and yet you followed her to that address. She said it only lasted about twelve minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. She felt like the incident would never end, you were ranting about killing people and tying people up. You were volatile and unpredictable.

‘The victim had to lie to her own children about why the damage was so great, so that they did not feel unsafe in their home environment. She has had to spend money on security, estimated at thousands of pounds.

‘You targeted a vulnerable victim because you knew she was alone, had been sleeping on the sofa and in an unhinged state believed that a friend was trapped in a building somewhere. The events of your younger life are a catalyst for your damaged life and addictions to addictive substances, but that does not justify what you have done.”

Bailey was also served with a restraining order.

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