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The teen party where 50 yobs trashed the house and even drugged the family puppy
Last updated at 23:07pm on 29.02.08
Teen party mayhem: The Anscombs' dog Bailey was left 'comatose' after chewing unidentified pills left by gategrashers
She said it would be a quiet sleepover with a couple of friends. And her mother believed her.
But temptation got the better of 15-year-old Gemma Johnson and a few more invites were issued when she was given the run of the family home last weekend.
In the end, more than 50 youngsters converged on the £250,000 home in a quiet street - smashing up the newly-decorated house and even drugging the family dog.
When her mother, Julia Anscomb, and stepfather Robert returned from what was meant to be a relaxing weekend away they barely recognised their home and found five-month-old puppy Bailey "comatose" on the kitchen floor.
He had been chewing unidentified pills.
The sleepover appears to have spiralled into a "Skins party", named after the Channel Four drama about appallingly behaved teenagers, as the mob caused more than £5,000 damage, stole jewellery and laptops and left graffiti on walls.
Not that that seems to be worrying Gemma.
According to her mother, she is staying at a friend's house and has not been back since the weekend to see the devastation caused to the family home in Woking, Surrey.
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Aftermath: A small amount of the alcohol drunk by the teenagers as they trashed the house
Mrs Anscomb, 37, said: "We feel totally violated. We are devastated and can't believe this has happened. How could anyone do this?
"I was so upset when I saw the state of the house that I just wanted to set light to it. I didn't recognise it as my home.
"We went from room to room to see what they had done, trying to get over the shock."
Youths left graffiti "tags" in some of the bedrooms.
Illegal drugs were found littered throughout the five-bedroom semi-detached property as well as beer cans and empty bottles of spirits including vodka and rum.
A new £600 fridge had patterns scratched into it with a knife and Mrs Anscomb's eight-year-old daughter's room was destroyed - the canopy ripped off her bed, and underwear found beneath the covers.
Every bed in the house had been slept in, with six teenagers at one time in Mr and Mrs Anscomb's bed.
Two laptops were stolen as well as an iPod, expensive jewellery and a passport, and 57 phone calls were made using the house phone.
Disappointed: Yobs caused £5,000 worth of damage to Robert and Julia Anscomb's house
Mrs Anscomb said: "We went to London to celebrate my husband's birthday and we had agreed to let her have two or three friends over.
"In Robert's card I wrote, 'Let me take you away from all of it this weekend', but look what we came home to."
Her eight-year-old daughter was staying with her grandmother, and the two foreign students who normally live with the family were also away - leaving Gemma home alone.
Mrs Anscomb was told the sleepover had gone "wrong" in a phone call from her mother, and returned home from their trip to London on Saturday.
Gemma, who is said to be a "straight A" pupil at school, has told her mother most of the youths who attended the party were gatecrashers.
Mrs Anscomb said she thought word about the party may have spread on social networking website Bebo.
"I was aware there was alcohol in the house, but we trusted her," she added.
"My daughter has now run away to a friend's house and I can't get her back.
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Julia and Robert Anscomb's house, in Durrington, Surrey, had graffiti scrawled on the walls and totally wrecked rooms
"As parents we are not allowed to discipline our children anymore. She should come home to see the devastation.
"At the friend's house where she is staying she is allowed to stay out until midnight, so she is having a ball.
"I will probably have to end up going to court to get her back. I have packed her bags and moved her things out to her dad's house, but she still refuses to leave her friend's house.
"Kids are doing this sort of thing and then running off and not facing their responsibilities.
"It is now time she came home and faced the music."
A police spokesman confirmed officers visited the house last Friday night.
They confiscated alcohol from youths loitering nearby who said they were going to the house party.
Reader views (16)
The music Gemma needs to face is sung by a vocal trio with the names Fred, Kate and Cindy. (Not that Mum and Dad are blameless for all the crashers who got bombed, and the spur-of-the-moment scavenger hunt that really got out of hand.)
- John, New Jersey, USA
This is not an isolated event. I have experienced out of control house parties, curtains pulled from upstairs windows (complete with the pole) and thrown in the garden, the toilet bowl removed, baked beans put in sherry glasses, broken windows, broken furniture, vomit, cigarette burns on carpets, spilt beer (floor and ceiling) noise, the police etc etc. Mind you that was 1978, when I was 15 and I was one of the party goers. Of course there was a Labour Government then too. The Labour Party Animals!
- Craig, Bromley, Kent
Did Bailey the dog recover OK?
- Bob, London
I recall plenty of out-of-control teenage parties in the 1980s, and I don't remember people blaming Thatcher. One particularly disastrous one came about as a result of a local pirate DJ announcing it to all and sundry, so you can't even blame Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the World Wide Web.
I feel quite sorry for people so hung up on the notion that New Labour is the root cause of all of society's present ills that they're going to be in for a very nasty shock when the political pendulum swings back to the Tories... and teenagers carry on having rowdy parties!
- Michael, London
I'm amazed these stories keep making the news, in the small Surrey town I grew up in this kind of thing happened all the time, drunken teenagers were always trying to crash parties and damage was caused and that was 20 years ago. In fact this seems tame compared to some of the ones I was at trying to stop people throwing garden furniture through the neighbours gardens. Or the time when for a prank we removed every internal door from a house and hid them in the garden shed whilst the party host was passed out drunk (not that I'm proud, but we were young...) I can't believe where I grew up was any different to every other town and city in the country.
- Nicholas, London, UK
I blame the parents. And the Schools. And the Government. And the Off-licence proprietors.
- James, London UK
Absolutely hilarious!
- Neil, london uk
What silly parents to leave your 15 year old, alone with no supervision and have a party - I remember having parties when I was younger but my parents would only let me if I had an adult present as it was their house.
- Lisa, Surrey
I think they've largely themselves to blame. For leaving a 15 year old home alone for a whole weekend and for bringing up said 15 year old in such a way that she is too cowardly to face her parents afterwards.
- Isabel, Woking, England
Social networking sites exacerbate the problem but teenage parties getting out of hand is nothing new and it's got nothing to do with "Nu Labour" or indicative of a wider lack of law and order. Sorry people but the country isn't going to the dogs and the sky is not falling down!
- Nick, London
But surely this girl being only 15 years old shouldn't have been left on her own for the weekend.
- Steven Patrick M, London, UK
Are they out of their minds leaving a 15 year old on her own while they are away?
- Bb, London
If she's 15 years old, doesn't she have to go back as she's still under age? Kids get away with too much and are out of control. You never got this kind of behaviour when there was caning in schools and given a smack for bad behaviour. I'm not saying that all this should be brought back but something needs to be done or no one will be safe any more. When I was naughty, I got the odd smack on the bum and I turned pretty OK I think. I've never gone out to intentionally hurt another person.
- Moo, South London, UK
Tough luck fellas...your stupid daughter was the one who invited them over let them into your house.
Next year just give her money for a MacDonald's Birthday Party instead
- Tony, London
Just one of the symptoms of Nu-Labours do as you like governance. As MPs say "just draw your pay and it will all go away."
- Robert El-Cid., Hull, East Yorks.,
Very sad indeed!
- Fraser, Telford Park
