WHEN a burglar brushed past the arm of Mercian Fernandes as she slept in the dead of night, her life changed forever.

Roger Moore, 44, who has since been jailed for 20 months at Swindon Crown Court, was drunk when he entered the terraced house in Salisbury Street in the early hours of August 19.

A family of five, including Miss Fernandes, slept on as he rummaged around the ground floor of the house, setting aside a laptop and eyeing up the victim’s mobile phone as he gave the game away.

“It was so scary because in the middle of the night you don’t expect it and suddenly, you open your eyes, somebody’s right in front of you,” the 29-year-old said.

“I don’t even sleep there now because I’m scared. I can’t go in that room at night-time. When I come home from work, if I’ve been on lates it’s 11 o’clock, and I’m scared to open the door.

“This should be a safer place. I came to Swindon because I thought it was a safe place. Thank god I’m living with my mum and dad.

“If I had been on my own I don’t even want to think about what could have happened to me.”

Miss Fernandes, a sales assistant at Membury Services, was sleeping beside her husband when Moore woke her up.

The pair, who share the house with Miss Fernandes’s parents and sister, are now looking to move house in an effort to regain some normality and confidence in their surroundings.

“His hand touched my arm. I woke straight away. If a pin drops in my bed I can feel it,” she said.

“I saw him and thought it was my dad at first, but I knew it couldn’t be him. I told my husband there was somebody in the room. I grabbed him (Moore).

“I don’t know how I did it, I caught him and then I screamed because you don’t know, he might have a sharp thing on him.

“I screamed so loudly everybody came down.”

As the family piled into her front bedroom, Miss Fernandes’s father took hold of the drunkard, who was telling them he was looking for a man called John.

They held on to the defendant, who struggled to get away, until police arrived in minutes after Miss Fernandes’ sister, Queency, 19, made the call.

Once Moore was taken away by officers, Miss Fernandes said she went into shock and struggled to make any sense to her family.

“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “When I go for work now, if I’m doing a late shift and I’m left alone for half an hour I get so scared and I run to my manager.

“I can’t work alone. I get scared in my workplace.”