Children aged 7 and 10 traumatised by violent Sunnybank home invasion

A Brisbane mother whose young children were confronted by the aftermath of a home invasion and stabbing in the city’s south has revealed the trauma they experienced, and the bizarre ongoing link to the offenders.

The woman at the home suffered a broken foot after she was hit by a car door as thieves reversed out of her driveway. Picture: Richard Walker

A seven-year-old girl was forced to come to the aid of her mum’s injured partner as he lay bleeding from a stab wound following a violent home invasion.

The girl and her sibling, aged 10, were at home with their mum and her partner at Lister St, Sunnybank, on December 12 when a group of thieves broke in to steal the family’s car.

The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was allegedly hit by a car door as the thieves reversed out of her driveway, leaving her with a fractured foot, while her partner was stabbed in the fracas.

The offenders remain on the run.

Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Mail, the woman said she was concerned about what her young daughter had witnessed.

“I got hit by the reversing car door, I got off the ground and at the same time my partner was stabbed and she saw my partner was bleeding all the way from the garage and then up to the dining area,” she said.

“I came in and he was standing at the door bleeding. He was shaking, and then I was frantically trying to find my phone to call police.

“She was trying to find stuff for him to stop the bleeding. So it’s quite a traumatic event for a seven-year-old.

Thieves broke into the Lister St home in a bid to steal a car.

“We saw the blood, the blood was throughout the house. She was there the whole time with me, it was very traumatic.

“I walked to the dining area, sat down and then I was just holding him and crying, and then my two children just stood next to us as well.”

The mother said she had booked counselling sessions for both her children following the incident and that the children were now living with their dad in a separate home.

“They kept asking us when we can move,” she said.

“I do believe it will have a psychological effect on them when they return to the house, especially overnight because my daughter is always a light sleeper, so she may wake up and have nightmares.”

She said she told the kids that she was considering moving houses.

“We told the children that we need to get better first and we need to find a place and there’s a lot involved because we also need to go through the process of ending the lease early,” she said.

“It’s still traumatic for us, even when I first returned to the house. Almost every night I struggle to fall asleep, because I was the one who spotted the people.

The woman was injured as she was hit by a car door as it was being driven out of her driveway.

“I will wake up a number of times, or I fall asleep early, but I usually wake up. My sleep pattern is very disrupted.”

The woman said she has been living in tremendous fear.

“You feel very exposed because, you’ve been robbed – they took my wallet with my driver’s licence, Medicare card, blue card, all my credit cards, debit cards, everything’s gone,” she said.

Even after the incident police asked her to monitor her son’s Nintendo Switch which had been stolen.

“It was very traumatising to keep seeing someone using my son’s Nintendo because I had parental control on,” she said.
“So they took my son’s Nintendo switch and I could see my phone ever since they left on Friday, they’ve been using it every day.

The woman said Queensland still had gaps when it came to supporting victims of crime and that authorities had not pointed her in the direction of the government’s Victim Assist Queensland after the incident.

The woman’s wallet was stolen along with her licence and other cards. Picture: Richard Walker

“I hope from here, there will be less gap with the services we have to have contact with because in a crisis situation, those gaps really make the victim feel more vulnerable. It definitely can,” she said.

“When the whole thing happened, me and my partner were living in this quite a tremendous fear, because we didn’t know who can really help us.”

The woman, who used to work in child safety, said it was terrifying how brazen some criminals were.

“I spent a few years in a team managing the high risk youth and it was very frustrating and because of the juvenile system, a lot of time young people told me that nothing is going to happen to them,” she said.

“It was a belief that nothing is going to happen to them, you get on probation, bail, but normally there were pretty much let out very quickly.”