Melissa Rodriques, who lives in Waikane in New Zealand, assumed her three-year-old son had been dreaming when he confided he was frightened of a man outside his bedroom window, but as events unfolded it was soon established the little boy had not fallen victim to a standard childhood nightmare.
When Melissa and her husband woke up to their son's horrified screams on June 26th, the couple quickly realised the threat to his safety was real.
Recalling the devastating moment, Melissa said: "At 5.30 in the morning he let out an absolutely gut-wrenching scream from his room. I knew something wasn't right."
Investigating the incident, the terrified family soon discovered footprints in their yard which lead to their wide-open garden gate.
Contacting the police, the horrified parents related the events to authorities who advised them to keep watch should the intruder return.
Setting up a makeshift surveillance system with the use of an old smartphone and a free app called Salient Eye, the couple trained the camera at the front of the house under the assumption the intruder, should he return, would approach the building from the same direction.
Sending their son to his grandmother's, the couple spent an anxious night waiting to see if the potential intruder would return and were horrified to realise he had decided to re-enter their property at 04.40 am.
Immediately alerting police to his presence, authorities quickly apprehended the 15-year-old hooded intruder, with the shocked couple recalling: "I dropped everything and called the police, they came really quickly. We didn't want to risk being seen because we didn’t know who they were, how many they were, whether they had weapons…we didn't want to put ourselves in harm’s way."
Their son was understandably traumatised by the frightening incident and refused to return to his bedroom until his parents showed him footage of the assailant being apprehended and led away by police.
Paying tribute to her brave little boy, Melissa said: "If it wasn't for him alerting us, we never would have known. We can all sleep at night now."
Commenting on the incredible run of events, a police spokesperson said: "This incident was able to be sorted out very quickly, thanks to the excellent information supplied by the family, and the police working quickly, together with the help of the mobile phone app."
