Baby raised alarm after thief broke into home and changed TV channel

A thief broke into home while a mother and her child were asleep in the living room and changed the TV channel. Rachael Andrews said the man entered through a back door of her home and walked over the sleeping mother and changed the channel on the television to the Cartoon Network to distract her one-year-old daughter, Mia Cahenzli.

The distraction did not work as young Mia sounded the alarm, upset when her favourite show Sophia the First was changed. Rachael, who lives in Palmerston in Australia's Northern Territory, said she was angry that the offender came in even after seeing the young family. “I’m not happy he had the nerve to break in here,” she said.



When Rachael woke up and realised what happened she was so shocked that she was physically sick. “I went and vomited, he could have killed me, it freaked me out,” she said. Her iPhone was stolen along with two six packs of alcohol, an iced coffee, two shot glasses and an internet modem. A laptop sitting on the living room table was untouched.

She was able to locate and recover the smartphone using a tracking app. Rachael lives with her daughter and her mother Kate. Kate said she did not think the thief would have come into the home if he had known which house he was entering. She said her collection of pet snakes, guard dogs and a duck named Boss would keep any would-be burglars at bay. NT Police Duty Superintendent Helen Braam said the matter was an “active investigation”.