Imagine the shocking reality of checking your mobile phone to review CCTV footage, only to see a masked and armed man standing at your front door.
This was the "unsettling encounter" faced by a 56-year-old grandmother at her residence in Flynn on Saturday night, after an armed burglar allegedly entered the home and stole the family car. The intruder's image on the security camera has left her unable to sleep.
It was about 11.10pm on August 8, when Michelle Jenkins settled into bed with the television still on. At 11.26pm, her phone lit up with a text alert: "There's motion at your front door."
Assuming it was simply a cat or a possum picked up by her doorstep camera, Ms Jenkins opened the notification.
"I froze. There was a man in a balaclava looking straight at me," she recalled of the heart-racing moment.
"I didn't know if he was in the house or outside. I was thinking, should I leave my room?"
The thought of her two-year-old granddaughter sleeping in the next room immediately prompted the grandmother to rush out to wake her son, Mason. While they were attempting to figure out what was happening, they heard their sunburst-orange 2015 Holden Commodore being driven out of the driveway.
"He had come through the back door, which was unlocked, passed my bedroom, where he would have seen me asleep, and then walked past my granddaughter's and my son's rooms," Ms Jenkins said.
"He reached the front door after taking the keys to the Commodore, my Ford Ranger, and the house. It is extremely unsettling to realise someone was inside while all three of us were asleep."
The doorbell camera captured the masked man as he exited the family home through the front screen door, sending the footage straight to Ms Jenkins' phone.
"We called the police, but they said they had a busy night and arrive around 3am on that day," she said.
The delay in police attending the crime scene gave the burglar time to return to the Flynn home, allegedly to steal Ms Jenkins' brand-new Ford Ranger.
"Shaken by the whole incident, we were awake examining the CCTV footage when, at 1.10am, we heard a car in our driveway. My son said, 'Mum, that's our car,' and bolted outside," Ms Jenkins recalled.
Footage showed the alleged burglar returning in the stolen Commodore, followed by a black SUV carrying suspected accomplices. The group sped away after Mason gave chase in his work ute.
Ms Jenkins, a firefighter experienced in battling bushfires, has been managing post-traumatic stress disorder for some time.
"This has really affected me. I haven't left the house since," she said.
The family has since spent more than $3000 repairing the CCTV network damaged during the break-in, installing a new ignition kit in Ms Jenkins' Ford Ranger, and changing all the locks on the house.
They await ACT Policing's response regarding the man who "blatantly entered" their home and returned in the stolen car for a second attempt on the family's second car.
