What would you do if you found a burglar in your home?
Plenty of us would hide until they were gone before calling the police, but not this student from Inverness, Scotland, who bravely confronted her intruder and got her stuff back in the process.
Natalie Smyth got the shock of her life when she got out of the shower in her Dundee flat and heard movement downstairs after her flatmates had gone out.
At first she thought it was one of her flatmates returning, but after peering down the stairs she noticed a strange figure roaming around her hallway.
Jam PressThe trespasser, dressed in a black and grey jacket, had stuffed two Apple Macbooks and chargers into a blue bag and tried to make a run for it.
Natalie recalled:
I was just out of the shower, playing music and singing away to myself in my room, but I heard some rustling coming from the hall.
I thought it could have been one of my flatmates but as I stepped into the hall I called out the name of my flatmate, receiving no reply, and quickly scanned the rooms as it’s a small flat.
I was momentarily confused, only until I noticed a shadowy figure by the front door, fumbling around with some bags.
It was dark so it was hard to see, but it was immediately obvious that this person was not one of my flatmates.
Without thinking, the 22-year-old immediately whipped out her phone to record as she raced down the stairs towards the thief. She bravely approached the man and managed to grab the stolen belongings without too much trouble, as the man tried to quickly flee the scene.
Jam PressThe university student said:
I have no idea what gave me the courage.
Whenever I’d previously imagined myself in this situation, I always assumed I’d either enter fight or flight mode and try to defend myself, or lock myself in my room.
But I suppose you can never anticipate how you will react in a situation like this until you’re in it. I wasn’t scared, surprisingly.
I think my immediate response was to try to defuse the situation as quickly as possible.
He was so close to the front door and seemed as if he was just about to leave anyway.
I almost let him get away with the bag until it dawned on me that it could’ve contained some of our belongings.
I had no idea the Macbooks were in there until after he had left, but I wasn’t going to allow a stranger to leave with a bag of items belonging to us, regardless of what it was.
Jam PressIn the video, you can hear Natalie catching up with the thief as he was leaving the flat, telling him: ‘What you doing, what you taking with you? That’s my stuff, what you doing? What you doing in here? Look, you can’t take that with you. What are you doing in the flat?’
The intruder proceeded to storm out of the flat and shut the door, appearing frustrated that he was caught in the act.
Natalie then shouted at him: ‘Don’t come back here again because I’ll have to call the police!’
The man then replies: ‘Don’t call the police, I am the police,’ to which Natalie said: ‘You’re not the police! You shouldn’t be in the flat.’
Natalie said she wasn’t shocked that she managed to get her belongings back, saying he didn’t show any sort of violence and was simply an ‘opportunist thief’.
She has since reported the incident to the police, but claimed she hasn’t heard back since.
Jam PressNatalie added:
I didn’t realise the door was unlocked – my flatmate went out for half an hour and forgot to lock it behind her on her way out.
And I’m unsure how he got through the secured entrance to the main building either.
She has since reposted the video on her Twitter account to warn her followers, telling them:
Please remember to lock your doors in Dundee guys. I’ve just come out of my room to find this idiot trying to leave with a bag of our MacBooks. What a week.
The tweet was inundated with comments praising Natalie for her nerves of steel.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.