A mother whose children complained of a ghost in their house has revealed how she discovered her neighbour’s son had been climbing through her daughter’s bedroom window.
Leah McCaw, 31, from Liverpool, said family life became ‘intolerable’ when her three terrified children repeatedly said they had seen a ‘boogeyman’ upstairs in their home.
After months of sightings, Leah was home-alone when she discovered the sinister stranger in her bedroom, before managing to flee the house and phone the police.
It was only weeks later that police arrested Peter Hornby, 29, the son of Leah’s next-door-neighbour, who went on to be convicted of burglary and common assault in June 2019 and imprisoned for two-and-a-half years.
Leah McCaw, 31, from Liverpool, said her children were left ‘terrified’ after repeatedly seeing a ghost upstairs in their home – before she discovered it was her neighbour’s son, who had been sneaking into her house for months (pictured, Leah with Rosie, Molly and Thomas)
After separating from her children’s father, Leah said she and her three children aged nine, seven, and five were ‘an incredibly tight unit’.
She revealed: ‘Life as a single mum wasn’t easy but I was determined to make a better life for us and found us a nice terraced house, next door to a sweet old lady.’
When the family moved in, they befriended the elderly next-door-neighbour, who lived alone since her own children had left home.
Leah said: ‘We would often chat over the garden fence and I made sure she knew I was there to help.’
Peter Hornby accessed Leah’s home by climbing out of his own house and onto a flat garage roof, where he could see into her daughter’s bedroom (pictured, the windows of the two homes)
The generous Leah said she would help out with odd jobs, and offered to pick up groceries at the shops for her elderly neighbour.
She explained: ‘My kitchen window looked out onto our cul-de-sac so I had a pretty good idea of my neighbour’s comings and goings and I made a point to look out for her.’
But Leah said she was confused because she could often hear her neighbour’s television was almost always blaring, even when the elderly woman popped out to the shops.
She revealed: ‘She must have been going a bit deaf because I could hear her television from next door. So when I began hearing it blaring when I knew she had popped out the shops, I thought it was strange.
Leah’s next-door-neighbour’s son Peter Hornby, 29, was imprisoned in June 2019 of burglary and common assault after sneaking into her home repeatedly over the course of months
‘I reasoned that she must be getting forgetful too and forgotten to switch it off. But then I began hearing bumping and banging when I knew she was out.’
After confirming with others that the neighbour didn’t have a secret partner, Leah tried to put it to the back of her mind.
But it wasn’t long before her nine-year-old daughter Rosie terrified Leah by screaming for help while playing upstairs in their home.
Leah recalled: ‘I bolted upstairs and found her in floods of tears, frozen to the spot, pointing to her bedroom window. My heart skipped a beat as I flung the curtains back, but there was nothing there.’
Leah’s children were left terrified after they began seeing a sinister stranger upstairs in their home over the course of several months (pictured, Leah with Thomas, Molly and Rosie)
While Leah tried to soothe her horrified daughter, the nine-year-old kept insisting she had seen a man by the window,
Then, a few days later, Leah’s younger daughter Molly also screamed out for help having seen a ghostly figure in the house.
The mother-of-three revealed: ‘I reassured her she was imagining things. But the kids started complaining about this ‘ghost’ most days and it got to the stage where they wouldn’t even go upstairs to the toilet on their own.’
‘I put it down to a phase they were going through and started looking it up on forums online.
Leah said family life became ‘intolerable’ as the children began asking her to accompany them every time they went upstairs (pictured, Leah with her daughter Molly, Rosie and Thomas)
‘After reading through a few posts and clicking onto videos on YouTube, I was reassured it would pass in time.’
But Leah said her children became so scared of ‘the man upstairs’ that family life ‘became intolerable’.
Months later, while she was home alone and getting ready for college, Leah saw a flicker of movement upstairs.
She quickly phoned a friend and crept upstairs to investigate, with her heart hammering in her chest.
Three months after the children first spotted the man, Leah saw a flicker of movement upstairs while home alone (pictured, Leah)
She said: ‘I told myself I was being silly and that the kids were getting in my head.’
‘I was telling myself, “There’s no such thing as monsters under your bed, or bogeymen at the window”.
‘But I felt a sickening knot of fear tighten in my stomach as I pushed open my bedroom door.
Leah was horrified to find a man standing in her bedroom, ‘looking right at her’, and said it was ‘like a scene from a horror movie.’
The mother-of-three said she was petrified as she crept upstairs in her home to investigate the ghostly sighting
Leah recalled: ‘Just as I always imagined I would, I froze in terror. I literally couldn’t move a muscle. I could barely breathe.’
The stranger dragged the petrified Leah into the bedroom, clasping his hand over her mouth and warning her ‘not to scream.’
Positive the man must be a burglar or a man on the run who had somehow managed to find his way into her home, Leah said her mind was ‘racing’ as she listened for police sirens.
But in the moment the stranger grabbed her, Leah said ‘something snapped’ inside her, and she found the strength to fight her attacker off.
Police discovered Hornby had been climbing into Leah’s home by standing on a flat piece of roof outside her daughter’s bedroom (pictured)
She revealed she thought: ‘This was my home, my children’s home – I had to protect my family.
‘And so, summoning all the strength I could, I leapt up and punched him in the face. He barely flinched but it bought me a split second to flee downstairs and out into the street.’
Leah screamed for help and a neighbour quickly came out of their home, phoning the police.
Within minutes officers arrived at the house but, after they stormed her home, they came out empty-handed.
Leah said she felt as though she was ‘in a horror movie’ during the terrifying encounter, before she managed to find the strength to punch the man and escape to phone the police
The police explained that after thoroughly searching the house, they hadn’t found any intruder.
She said: ‘It was chilling and when the kids got home from school and I reassured them everything would be ok…I didn’t really believe it myself.’
She added: ‘They hadn’t been making up the ghostly goings-on after all. This was no silly childhood phase or game of make-believe – I’d seen the bogeyman in my bedroom with my own eyes.
‘It felt like we were in the middle of a horror movie – only we couldn’t hide behind a cushion or turn the TV off. It was a living nightmare.’
Terrified, the mother-of-three arranged for her family to move in with her while the police investigated the crime.
There was no sign of the sinister stranger until, two weeks later, Leah was woken by the sound of sirens and police storming into her elderly neighbour’s house.
Leah was baffled until officers explained they’d arrested her neighbour’s son, who had been seen climbing into her house on several occasions.
The mother-of-three, who called the experience ‘chilling’, explained: ‘We realised he must have climbed up onto the flat roof outside my little girl’s bedroom and got access to our house that way.
‘A shiver ran down my spine as I thought about how many times he’d been looking at us through the window or worse, actually in the house, sneaking about.’
The mother-of-three said the terrifying experience still impacts her three young children, who remain scared of going upstairs on their own
In June 2019, Peter Hornby was convicted of burglary and assault and jailed for two-and-a-half years.
Leah said the impact of the terrifying encounter still impacts their family life, explaining: ‘Even now, the kids are scared to go upstairs on their own.
‘It breaks my heart to have to tell them that the bogeyman in their bedroom was a real-life monster, our nasty neighbour next door.’
‘I’m just glad he’s locked up, where he belongs.’