A TRAUMATISED great-grandmother has spoken of the moment she woke to find a burglar in her bedroom rifling through her valuables in the dark.

Seventy-three-year-old Valerie Barnes now fears going out after she discovered the thief in the early hours of the morning.

He escaped with several pieces of jewellery worth thousands of pounds, including sentimental keepsakes previously owned by her late husband and mother.

Valerie told how the burglar, wearing a dark hoodie pulled up over his forehead, must have got in through a balcony door to her flat in The Dell, Southampton.

“I woke up hearing some rattling by my dressing tables and I thought what’s that noise and I said ‘who’s that?’,” she said.

“He said ‘it’s me’.

“I started to get up and I said ‘who’s me’ – then I saw this man with a hoodie on and as I was getting out of bed he ran off.

“I just didn’t know what was happening, I thought I was dreaming.”

Soon after, Valerie, who lives with her disabled 50-year-old daughter Paula Butterson, found all her jewellery including her bangles and watch missing.

In the lounge she realised porcelain figurines had been snatched along with a rare collection of English old money coins.

Valuables included two gold pendants with tiny watch faces in them that belonged to her mother and three bangles, which she had had made from her mother’s jewellery.

Valerie’s diamond wedding ring and eternity rings, from her late husband of 40 years Terry, which she had combined into one piece, was also taken.

“I feel disgusted that someone would do this to an old lady,” said the great grandmother-of-one, of Wallace Court.

“They will mean nothing to him or anybody else that gets them but they meant something to me.

“My husband died 10 years ago – everything he bought me has gone, my mothers stuff has gone.

“Everything’s gone.”

She also told how she has been struggling with anxieties when out and about since.

“The trauma of it’s been terrible,” she said.

“Every time I turn around there’s somebody in a black hoodie – I just wanted to stop and go home.”

She told how this had happened five months after arriving in the UK permanently, having been burgled only once in South Africa in 37 years.

“It’s ironic given that crime is quite high over there,” she added.

Police warned residents to be vigilant and to make sure their homes are secure following the incident at 4.45am on Thursday.

They appealed for anyone who saw or heard anything suspicious around the time to call them on 101.