Qld cop and family become latest victims of youth crime crisis

The wife of a police officer has told how the family feels “frightened and dumbfounded” after brazen thieves made off with four cars worth $150,000 and their daughter’s “schedule eight” medication from their home as they slept.

A police officer has become a victim of youth crime. Pic: 7News

The wife of a police officer who had her home broken into has revealed the thieves stole her sick daughter’s medication.

A group of teenagers invaded the Thornlands home about 2am on Monday after attempting to break into multiple properties and cars in the area.

The teens gained access to the address, despite all the doors being locked, and fled the area in four stolen cars.

Police were called to the incident around 6am and two of the stolen cars were located nearby at Lungren Drive a short time later.

Bec told the Courier Mail the family were still reeling after her daughter who has a brain tumour had her medication stolen.

Four vehicles — a Ford, Kia, Mazda, and Mini Cooper worth $150,000 and thousands of dollars in belongings were taken in the brazen robbery.

The four stolen cars. Pic: 7News

Bec said she was disappointed the thieves took her daughter’s medication – one that was difficult to source and could take some time to get again.

“It’s a schedule eight drug. In a hospital you need two registered nurses to sign them out, they are kept in a locked safe, they are counted and measured and very tightly controlled so it’s not an easy thing to get,” she said.

“It’s heartbreaking because it will impact her ability to function and to maintain an optimal level of health while she battles this illness.

“It’s just not OK.”

Bec said the whole family was asleep in separate rooms when they were ransacked. She said her husband woke up and told her the cars had been stolen.

“I sort of threw myself out of bed and walked into the main part of the house and there was stuff everywhere,” she said.

“All the cupboards were open, lots of our possessions were across the floor and everything had been rifled through, my handbag taken and I quickly ran upstairs to check on the girls and woke them up.

“We were dumbfounded as to what had happened. All our doors to the backyard, front yard to side, the garage door was wide open.”

The teens were captured on CCTV around the neighbourhood. Pic: 7News

She said they knew their cars had been stolen but they didn’t know the extent to which it would affect them.

“We are unsettled. Our home was locked as it is every day. You have a sense of safety in your own home so to wake up and find that that’s been violated in many ways is really unsettling,” she said.

“You go and change the locks but you don’t really feel much safer because they’re just different locks to the ones you have the day before.

“We’re not really sure what to do because we are vigilant with our home security. I just think these people really wanted what was in the driveway and were intent on getting it.”

She said the family had struggled since the incident.

“It’s such a violation and we were so vulnerable at that time and particularly my three teenage daughters, they’re just young women, two of them are still children,” she said.

“They were brazen to do that. It’s just really frightening.”

Police were called to the incident around 6am and two of the stolen cars were located nearby at Lungren Drive a short time later.

A Queensland Police spokeswoman said inquiries into locating the two outstanding vehicles, a grey 2021 Ford Ranger and a blue 2019 Kia Stinger, are ongoing.

Police are investigating possible links between this burglary and similar offences in Manly West earlier in the morning.

Investigators are appealing to anyone who may have information or relevant vision that may assist to come forward.

Originally published as Qld cop and family become latest victims of youth crime crisis