Back in January my partner, my 4year old son & I were watching television in the living room around 5 in the evening when we heard a huge bang coming from the window, as my partner went to inspect the sound our window had been smashed & there were two young adult males dressed in all black with masks & gloves on holding house bricks in hand standing under our window (we live in a 2 story flat & we are on the top level), they went on to throw another two house bricks trying to completely shatter the window before fleeing, I took our son into the hallway away from any windows & began calling the police then called my dad as he lived close by & I knew he’d get there before the police would. My parents arrive & I asked them to take our son back to their’s to keep him safe & to avoid further frightening him. Once the police arrive they ask a bunch of questions, a couple of the following being ‘have you pissed anyone off recently?’ & ‘how long have you lived here?’ For context we have lived here for nearly 5 years now (rules out mistaken identity as the police thought it could be meant for someone who lived here before us) I’m autistic & am very anti social & socially anxious, I genuinely don’t speak to anyone outside of our family, myself nor my partner or I had fell out with anyone recently. We had never had an issue like this before anywhere we have lived so this came as quite a shock so we just kept wondering & asking ourselves ‘why?’. We didn’t have cctv at the time because we never felt we needed it before. Police couldn’t do anything so the case was closed & we were told it’s probably youths messing around & being reckless & it’s unlikely to happen again especially if we installed cctv.
Afterwards I was a nervous wreck, I’m already a super anxious person, I wasn’t sleeping, I would lay awake all night watching the camera footage, when I would sleep I was having nightmares of intruders breaking in & smashing the windows, kicking the door down, I would leave all our curtains and windows closed all the time incase they came back. I went to my GP & told them I was struggling afterwards, I was put on anti depressants, anti anxiety meds & sleep tablets. After a few months I started getting back to normal, we started to let our guard down a little thinking it was truly a one off incident. Until April, when it happened again, but this time it was much worse.
Around 1:30am I was asleep in bed with our dog beside me, my partner & son were in the living room watching tv (my son is also autistic & is terrible with his sleep, he can be up till early hours in the morning most nights) my son had just not long fell asleep beside his dad on the sofa whilst they had been watching tv together. Suddenly I awake to a huge hang & a loud crash/smash, my partner shouting & my son screaming crying, I quickly tried to see what had happened when before I could even walk through the door my partner stopped me & handed our son to me & told me to not come in as there is glass everywhere & to call the police they had smashed our window again. While on the phone to police I quickly checked my son for any injuries as the glass must of sprayed over him, thankfully he hadn’t been injured but he had a chunk of glass on his t-shirt & glass specs in his hair, I could see tiny specs shining on his skin, I had to give him a shower to get rid of it all, I called my dad again to come take him & agreed we’d stay & speak to police, board up the window then make our own way over to my partners to stay with them for a while. I hadn’t seen the living room yet, I didn’t realise just how bad it was until the police arrived & I went in to speak with them. The window had been completely shattered into smithereens, the window frame had cracked down the middle, our camera had been knocked down, the glass was everywhere, all over our sofa, my son’s teddy’s, there were glass chunks in our dogs water bowl! Even worse of all the brick had actually entered our home this time.. & had landed directly on our dogs bed on the other side of the room. Thankfully she wasn’t on it at the time but if she had I dread to think the outcome, we were very lucky she wasn’t. We inspected the cctv footage & again saw two young adult males in all black with masks and gloves with bricks stuffed in their pockets. The police again said they can’t do anything as they’re faced were covered & the gloves would rule out any forensic fingerprints on the brick. All our neighbouring housing cameras were conveniently ‘not working’ that night. Nothing more could be done so the case was closed almost immediately.
Once they left myself & my partner boarded up the window, packed a suitcase full of clothes & essentials & made our way to my parents. My son was still awake & couldn’t sleep by himself, he used to be able to sleep independently in his own room but after this he would not sleep alone. I was awake all night obsessively looking through the footage, I paused it at one point of the video & could see the one males face wasn’t completely covered, only his mouth & part of his nose was covered, I could see his eyes, forehead & top of his nose, to me looks he looks dark skinned/black. I mentioned this to police the following day & sent the photo to which I was told the case was already closed so there’s nothing more they can do. I posted to our local neighbourhood watch group which was mostly unhelpful & full of people asking ‘well have you pissed anyone off lately? People don’t just brick windows for no good reason’ in other words we must of done something deserving of this. A lot of people did comment & agree it looks like a black male despite the footage being terrible.
As of right now I’m at a loss, I have no idea who could be responsible for this, the police are being unhelpful & I’m sure we’ll probably never find out who is doing this. We are still staying with my parents months later, we are waiting to be moved through our housing association, we have been told it could take months despite being in urgent banding & direct letting/direct offer.