Youth Crime QLD: Terrifying weapons used during break and enters

Home owners are being warned not to take matters into their own hands amid reports of juvenile offenders breaking into homes with terrifying weapons. FULL STORY

YOUNG offenders terrorising home owners are increasingly arming themselves with lethal weapons, according to a security guard working on the front line of the youth crime crisis.

Wayne Heneker, whose company Gold Coast Patrol Dogs K9 Security has been hired by residents to patrol streets in Benowa Waters, Sorrento and Broadbeach Waters, said police had even warned him that some offenders may be carrying guns.

“I’ve been getting a lot of CCTV footage of armed offenders. We’ve had them with kitchen knives, carving knives,” Mr Heneker said.

“One even had a Rambo style knife. That was in Broadbeach Waters.

“This one came through the pedestrian gate into the property. We do dozens of homes that we walk through gates like that.

“It’s getting pretty scary.

“I even had a police officer saying to me, they’re carrying guns now, so take care.”

A young offender carrying a 'Rambo-style' knife during an attempted break-in at Broadbeach Waters. Picture: Gold Coast Patrol Dogs K9 Security.

At least 15 deaths have been linked to alleged youth crime in Queensland in the past two years. Mr Heneker said he feared more people would get seriously hurt or killed as frightened residents took matters into their own hands.

“I went over to Sorrento one night and I found guys walking the streets with baseball bats,” he said.

“I told them, ‘I think you should go home, you can’t be armed in the street’.

“I went around a corner, there was a guy with a pruning saw with a handle. He says, ‘I’m just waiting for ’em’.

“I think people are tired (of it), there’s going to be more instances where people get hurt or killed on either side.”

“I’ve spoken to residents and guys have said to me, ‘I’m really scared of what I could do, and end up in prison away from my family’.”

Mr Heneker has seen first hand the devastation caused by youth crime, chancing upon a stolen vehicle in flames on the M1 in December 2021.

Shockingly, the driver of the vehicle, who spent days in a coma at Gold Coast University Hospital after being pulled from the flaming wreckage, was arrested on the Sunshine Coast five weeks later after allegedly stealing another vehicle.

Security guard Wayne Heneker and his dog 'Boss', who has been hired by Gold Coast residents to patrol their suburbs. Picture: Nigel Hallett.

News Corp’s Queensland titles on Tuesday launched a campaign to demand more is done, setting out performance targets for the state government including driving down the numbers of repeat offenders.

Despite what he has witnessed, Mr Heneker said that would not be achieved by locking teens up.

“The situations I’ve been involved in, you think things are going to change. They don’t change. Laws don’t change. They’re still out the next night doing the same thing,” Mr Heneker said.

“A lot of people say ‘lock them up and throw away the key’, but I’m not a big fan of that.

“Imprisonment, incarceration, is the last thing that needs to happen to these kids.

“With juvenile detention centres and things like that they just seem to be able to make more contacts and they don’t seem to be bothered by being in there, it’s actually probably a better place for them than home.”

Youths carrying knives seen 'casing' a house on the Gold Coast. Picture: Gold Coast Patrol Dogs K9 Security.

Mr Heneker instead suggested something similar to boot camps may help children who often came from horrific backgrounds and were “disenfranchised from society”, especially if they involved adults who had turned their backs on crime.

“There’s people out there who have gone back on the straight and narrow and can probably relate to these kids, and say, look this is where you’re going to end up,” Mr Heneker said.

“I’ve worked alongside people who have been in prison and have family and kids themselves now. They’ve matured. They survived, and they’re lucky to get back on the straight and narrow again.”

School safety campaigner Bruce Simmonds.

Criminal defence lawyer Bruce Simmonds, who has campaigned for boot camps and reform schools for youth criminals, also said he was against sending juveniles to prison.

“When you tackle these issues it’s not kids gone bad. There are a lot of issues bringing them to this point,” Mr Simmonds said.

“The idea of things like boot camps is to have a stability, in safety, to give them better guidance about how to respond to people and situations.

“... In many cases these are bored kids from broken homes. They need to be shown how to learn from their mistakes but the current system where they are arrested and released back onto the streets is a complete failure.”

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