- THE Reading landlady who was innocently caught up in
one of Britain's biggest-ever terror crackdowns has told of the terrifying
moment when 20 police officers raided her home.
-
- Speaking exclusively to the Evening Post from her Grovelands
Road home, Samantha Shannon described how officers looking for her Pakistani
lodger ripped up floorboards and searched her hot water tank while she
watched in terror.
-
- Visibly shaken by the ordeal, the 32-year-old says she
will never recover from the ordeal which left her and her other lodger,
a 17-year-old boy, cowering in the dining room.
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- Miss Shannon spoke to the Evening Post last night from
the front room of the tidy semi-detached home she bought just 15 months
ago, curled up with her black cat Munkei.
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- The front door still shows part of the round mark where
officers used a battering ram to burst into the house at 6am on Tuesday
as part of a simultaneous crackdown on 24 other properties across the South
East.
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- The Reading raid turned up nothing and police have confirmed
it was nothing to do with Miss Shannon who is a transport escort for disabled
children. Although the lodger was picked up by police in Luton in one of
the other raids, he was not arrested or detained.
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- Miss Shannon said: "I didn't fully understand what
the word surreal meant until a few days ago. They have ruined my life.
I'll never be able to get over this - I'm a nervous wreck.
-
- "On Monday evening I went to bed thinking the world
was a lovely place and then I woke up to this."
-
- "My house was stormed, overtaken by police. I woke
up to see policeman at my bedroom door. Me and my other lodger were told
to sit in the dining room while about 20 other police and forensic officers
ripped up the floorboards in my lodger's bedroom, went through the immersion
tank and took photographs.
-
- "They'd closed part of the road off, and I had officers
at my front and back door. All my neighbours saw what was going on.
-
- "I was asking for a search warrant, I watch enough
TV to know they need one, and they showed me one saying they were acting
on behalf of the Metropolitian Police under the Terrorism Act 2000.
- "I was like 'Jesus Christ'. I was half-expecting
Jeremy Beadle to turn up."
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- After the raid, Miss Shannon went to friends, and saw
her home thrust into the media spotlight on TV and in the papers.
-
- Returning on Tuesday night, she found the lodger - who
police have told her not to name - standing on the landing at the top of
the stairs.
-
- Not knowing whether he should be there or not, she fled
the house and called police.
-
- She said: "I was on the understanding he was one
of the eight that have been detained and I told them I didn't want him
back. But I got back here at 11pm on Tuesday night and he was here.
-
- "I fled the house and the police told me at midnight
he was in the clear."
-
- She added that her lodger, an IT worker who is back at
work today at a reputable Reading company and is in his late 20s or early
30s - was a quiet man.
-
- She said: "He is very, very polite, well dressed
and well mannered.
-
- "I thought it better to have someone like that rather
than someone who is into rap music and bringing girls home all the time
- I was as surprised as anybody by this.
-
- "But we had a chat and I realised he was as upset
as I was - he was not the person they were looking for."
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- Miss Shannon, who is Reading born and bred, now wants
to rebuild her life and reassure her neighbours that her house was an innocent
target.
- She says she is the responsible adult on buses taking
care of children with special needs travelling to and from school.
-
- She said: "I just want to clear my name and this
house of anything to do with terrorism of any description."
-
- "My house has been in near enough every national
newspaper and on every TV news bulletin.
- "I didn't even know the true extent of what was
going on here until the police sat me down in front of the news on Tuesday
and I heard the
- newsreader say police had launched their biggest anti-terrorist
action since the days of the IRA - with that I completely fell apart.
-
- "They kept reassuring me it was nothing to do with
me but it's the aftermath I am upset about.
- "Nobody [the police] has turned around and said
it was nothing to do with me or my lodger, that it was just part of their
enquiries, a case of mistaken identity or whatever it was."
-
- "Any information about what's happened since has
been because I kept ringing them. They're still not telling me anything
about why my house
- was raided. And I have not even had a 'sorry'."
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