Toutai Kefu: Police union claims many suburbs left unpatrolled

As the fallout continues from the Toutai Kefu home invasion, the Queensland Police Union claims many suburbs are left unguarded due to roster mismanagement.

Queensland’s police union head claims to have a list of many suburbs left unguarded by officers because of rostering mismanagement.

Speaking in the wake of a horror home invasion at the Brisbane property of Wallabies legend Toutai Kefu this week, union president Ian Leavers said Kefu’s suburb of Coorparoo had been left with no rostered police at the time three youths allegedly broke in with an axe, a machete and a knife.

Kefu, his wife and their two adult children were horrifically injured during the early hours of Monday morning when they tried to defend themselves against the teens.

The trio, who police allege were two boys aged 15 and a third aged just 13, are accused of breaking into the home, armed with weapons, to steal the family’s car.

The burglary turned violent when one member of the family – believed to have been Kefu’s wife Rachel – heard a noise and discovered the intruders in her home.

Neighbours came to their aid after hearing the family’s screams, with one tackling an allegedly knife-wielding youth to the ground.

The youth, a 15-year-old from Goodna in Ipswich, has been charged with numerous offences, including four counts of attempted murder.

The crime scene after Monday morning’s home invasion. Picture: Tara Croser

Two others fled in a Hyundai four-wheel-drive that police said had been stolen from a home in Brisbane’s Forest Lake an hour earlier.

One, a 15-year-old, was later dropped at the Princess Alexandra Hospital with a stab wound to his back.

He remains under police guard and is yet to be charged.

The other, a 13-year-old, was located by police later that day.

He was charged yesterday with burglary offences.

Both he and the Goodna teen have been remanded into custody.

Kefu was rushed to hospital in a critical condition with severe injuries to his abdomen.

His wife had severe injuries to her arm, their 21-year-old son was stabbed in the arm and back and their 18-year-old daughter in the arm and hand.

Yesterday, another daughter took to social media to let people know her father was “recovering well” after emergency surgery. She said her brother was also recovering well after surgery and her mother and sister would be operated on that day.

“(My sister) and mum will have their operations this morning,” she wrote.

“Thank you to everyone for all the kind messages and support. It means the absolute world to us.”

Mr Leavers said rostering issues – as well as police officers who had called in sick – had left the suburb of Coorparoo without any visible police patrols over the weekend.

Wallabies star Toutai Kefu is recovering from his injuries.

“I have a list of where many suburbs across Brisbane are left unguarded and not attended to because we have no police who are rostered in those areas,” he said.

“Obviously I will not go into detail of where those areas are because I am not going to give these juvenile criminals and other criminals a head start who are already outsmarting our senior police.”

Assistant Commissioner Brian Swan said while there were some issues with sick leave on Sunday night at the Coorparoo station, he was “very comfortable” with the police response that night.

“We had something like 39 operational police officers on duty, mobile, in the patrol groups around Coorparoo division between the hours of 10pm and 4am,” he said.

“The response time of our first response police was six minutes from receiving the phone call for help – and within 10 minutes we had something like six units on scene.”

In response to Mr Leavers’ claim that areas of Brisbane were being left without adequate police resources, he said: “I’d need something more specific than that.”

Mr Swan said the incident early on Monday morning was horrific.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Kefu family who I understand are still recovering in hospital,” he said.