MMC17 - CSI JJ

Last night, I went to bed as usual at about nine o'clock and was sound asleep shortly after. I was woken abruptly at twenty past ten by my phone ringing. It was Christine from next door to tell me that she could see someone in my garden. I immediately switched my bedside light back off and went for a wee peek through the curtain. It's very dark out the back but because the cooncil had cleared some of the undergrowth beyond my fence, I could clearly see somebody standing there.

I immediately phoned the police who said they would get someone out straight away. I have never been so terrified! I phoned Christine back again and she said that the stranger had been wandering about the garden and she thought that he might in fact be drunk. We could also hear someone talking but couldn't make out what they were saying.

The police arrived in about eight minutes, but it seemed so much longer. I met them at the front door and directed them through between the houses to where the garden is accessed. From my kitchen I could see them come into the garden and apprehend the person, who turned out to be a female in her twenties who was apparently well known to them. This girl was so out of her face on some sort of drug that, with hindsight, I think she had probably thought that she could get through between the houses but the only place she could gain access to was my garden and once in, she couldn't figure out how to get out again.

She was charged with vandalism, owing to the three solar lights that she had smashed and the coping stone from my wee wall that she had dislodged and smashed, then taken to the local hospital to be checked over. By the time Christine and I had given our statements it was after midnight, but I had great difficulty sleeping for the rest of the night. The blip is JJ doing her Crime Scene Investigation this morning. She was actually named after a character in Criminal Minds, but there wasn't much call for the Behavioural Science Unit in the garden.