A 13-year-old girl has been left traumatised after three armed criminals broke into her Brisbane home in broad daylight.
CCTV footage shows the masked men, who were dark-skinned but had their faces covered, force their way inside the home in a new estate in Rochedale South just after 4pm on Friday.
But the trio fled after the girl screamed, getting into a stolen getaway car and threatening another resident with a machete nearby. The girl told Nine News: “All I remembered was I just screamed and then I ran out the front door and just broke down. That’s all I remember.”
Queensland Police released images of the suspects, and said they left in a stolen Blue Mazda CX8 with Queensland Registration 407HR6 which was stolen from West End on Thursday night.
Police did not include a description of the trio, but they appear to be of aboriginal, African or Pacific Islander descent and locals have previously complained about teenage criminals from those groups terrorising the area.
Local community group Rochedale South Neighbourhood Crime Watchers, which has almost 4,000 members, shared footage of the incidents on social media, and said they were extending patrols to the neighbourhood where the home invasion took place.
“What has occurred is absolutely disgraceful, and I am now fully committed (quite frankly pissed off) to holding those responsible to account. This young person had no choice in being exposed to such a ruthless act of violence and intimidation,” the group’s Community Intelligence Coordinator wrote.
“To the communities of Rochedale South and Rochedale: it is time to lift the mask and expose this unacceptable behaviour for what it truly is.”
The girl’s father told The Courier Mail his daughter was “okay”, but the family now felt unsafe in their home.
“She is with the family, it was a complete invasion of privacy,” he said.
Rochedale South Neighbourhood Crime Watchers founder Damion Douglass said the girl and the family were traumatised, but said sophisticated cameras were able to catch the thugs in the act, as was another resident.
“On the way out, there was a resident that was driving and they were confronted with what looked to be a machete and swiped at their car on their way into the street,” he said.
Mr Douglass started the group last year, describing it as a bunch of mums and dads that decided “if the police can’t, I will”.
Header image: Left, right, the home invasion in progress (Nine News, Queensland Police).
