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Pregnant actress Tamzin Outhwaite, 42, has said she was left feeling 'vulnerable in her own home' after an intruder hid downstairs waiting for her to go to bed before stealing her handbag, laptop and purse.
Former EastEnders' star Tamzin, who is nine months pregnant with her second child, had been tending to her four-year-old daughter Florence's bedtime routine when she heard a noise coming from the ground floor of her north London home in May.
With her husband actor Tom Ellis working away, Tamzin went to investigate, and finding nothing out of the ordinary, simply locked all the doors and went back to her daughter's room to say goodnight.
"The whole incident really shook me up and it has made me feel really vulnerable in my own home," Tamzin told The Mirror, speaking out about the scary events for the first time.
"I was reading a bedtime story to Florence when I heard a noise downstairs but I couldn't find anything untoward when I went to look around.
"But it did make me feel nervous, so I locked all the doors and windows. Later that night, I went to bed not actually knowing that I had locked the burglar in the house.
"He'd obviously waited until Florence and I were asleep – which is really scary – found what he wanted and then let himself out of the front door. "
She went on to say it was a 'terrifying feeling' and that it didn't 'bear thinking about' what could have happened if, at seven months pregnant, she had come face to face with the thief.
But despite feeling emotional and hormonal, Tamzin says she refused to cry.
"I was in such shock when the police turned up that I didn't even give myself the chance to have a good blub," she says, adding that she was 'more angry than anything'.
"But I refuse to move house. Tom and I have spent years doing things to the house and it is our home," she said, "I am a very resilient person and I have this survival technique, which enables me not to deal with things in a dramatic way and move on."
Tamzin says the police have not yet caught the man, but insisted she had other more pressing things to worry about: " I hope they do, but I have more important things to concentrate on, like having another baby and all that entails."
What a horrible thing to happen to anyone - we're not surprised she feels vulnerable!