After their 15-month-old son was awakened in the night by a ‘deep male voice,’ which they believe was a man accessing their cot camera, a young family fears they may have been spied on in their own home for weeks.
Shannon Richardson, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, claims her son Freddie had been waking up at 2 a.m. every night and refused to go back to sleep, perplexing her and her partner Jack Gray.
The couple was shocked to learn the ‘reason’ when they heard a ‘deep male voice’ chatting to little Freddie over the webcam, which was so clear that they initially assumed someone was in the house.
Jack dashed into their son’s room and ripped the ‘hacked’ monitor from the wall where it had been used to video their child, before tossing it into a skip.
Shannon, 22, was so terrified that she insisted on staying at her mother’s house, even after it had been thrown away, and had Freddie stay in bed with her after she got home.
The care assistant is now concerned that the man may have been watching their son for weeks, even witnessing the pair attempting to soothe him, as seen by footage on the monitor showing Jack climbing into his son’s cot to comfort him.
Shannon Richardson, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, claims her son Freddie had been waking up at 2 a.m. every night and refused to go back to sleep, perplexing her and her partner Jack Gray.
The couple was shocked to learn the ‘reason’ when they heard a ‘deep male voice’ chatting to little Freddie over the webcam, which was so clear that they initially assumed someone was in the house.
Now the care assistant is concerned that the man may have been watching their son for weeks, even witnessing the pair attempting to soothe him, as seen by footage on the monitor showing Jack climbing into his son’s cot in an attempt to quiet him.
‘The illness, upset, and disdain we feel is horrific,’ Shannon said. What has this guy been doing in Freddie’s room for? After bath time, we change him and put him to bed in there.
‘We don’t sure how long this has been going on because he’d been waking up at the same time every night about 2 a.m. for a while and we couldn’t get him to sleep.’
‘Jack climbed into the cot to try to console him. We’d tried everything to calm him down but nothing worked, so we believe someone had jolted him awake.
‘However, since we removed the baby monitor, he hasn’t woken up during the night.’
In the weeks preceding up to the tragedy in October, images captured on the monitor show Jack, who works in fire and flood repair, soothing his kid in the crib in the middle of the night, but to no avail.
‘It was around 2.30 a.m., and Jack and I were watching TV,’ Shannon recalled.
‘We had the camera on and heard rustling, so we looked at it for a minute, assuming it was Freddie moving around in his cot.’
‘All of a sudden, we heard this extremely deep, male voice, so clear that we assumed he was in the bedroom.’
‘He was calling Freddie ‘baby’ and ‘baba,’ as if he was trying to rouse him up.’ Jack dashed upstairs and slammed the door in Freddie’s face.
‘There was no one in there, yet the monitor moved in the direction of Jack.’ The voice was coming from behind the display. Jack simply tore the monitor from the wall and grabbed Freddie.
‘We went into our room and sat there in silence, unsure of what to do.’ We were taken aback. ‘I had no idea what to believe or think.’
It’s unclear whether the monitor’s brand was picking up radio interference.
Shannon claims that the man’s voice was so clear that they mistook him for someone in the house, and that the encounter has made her feel unsafe in her own home.
‘Jack chucked the monitor in a skip,’ Shannon added. I didn’t want to be at my residence, so I continued to see my mother despite the monitor’s absence.
‘I didn’t feel at ease, and I was tense.’ We didn’t know if it was a local man, so I was terrified.
‘I couldn’t put Freddie to bed on his own, so he slept in my bed with me for a while, but I had to gradually separate him from me so he didn’t become too used to being with me.’
Shannon had received the video baby monitor as a present while pregnant and had been using it since the birth of Freddie.
‘I thought it was extremely convenient since it was great to be able to see him when he was in bed,’ Shannon remarked.
‘We’ve been using it since he was born,’ says the mother. Baby monitors are intended to be a safe way to keep an eye on your child.
‘You’d never suspect someone else was watching them through it,’ says the author.