Nightcliff resident Doreen Creek grapples with a recent, violent home invasion

She lost her handbag but not her willingness to go down without a fight. A 95-year-old woman spills her account of a home invasion.

AFTER a violent home invasion a week and a half ago, 95-year-old Nightcliff resident Doreen Creek threatened intruders that next time she’d “trip them on the way out” if they were to try again.

While quietly following her usual night-time routine of playing cards in front of the telly on Sunday July 31, Ms Creek was abruptly disturbed when a man shoulder-barged down her front screen door.

“I was watching the (Commonwealth) games sitting here playing cards with the tray on my lap and then all of the sudden, boom, he hit the thing and the cards went flying,” Ms Creek said.

Doreen Creek vows to trip up the next intruder after a home invasion on Casuarina Drive. Picture: Glenn Campbell.

“He flew in, grabbed my handbag (from the kitchen bench), which I rarely leave in there, and then left.”

When the screen door was forcefully sent flying, it landed just inches from Ms Creek’s feet but clipped the tray in her lap, sending her game of double pack patience flying into the air.

“The element was surprise,” Ms Creek said.

Police were contacted soon after the incident.

Superintendent Sean Parnell said investigations into the matter were ongoing.

“Police were notified of this incident on July 31 and investigations are ongoing to identify the offender,” he said.

The incident went for about five seconds but still loomed and replayed in Ms Creek’s mind.

Ms Creek said her son Bob Creek, aged in his 60s who she referred to as “the boy”, had requested she sleep at his house since the traumatic event.

But she returned to her unit every morning to continue her routine and tend to her impeccable garden.

Doreen Creek playing double pack patience on her cards tray while sitting in her living room where the intruder entered and left with her handbag. Picture: Glenn Campbell

“He’s been coming around here, picking me up and bossing me around and I said to Bob ‘I haven’t got dementia yet’ and he said ‘you could have fooled me’,” Ms Creek said.

“He doesn’t want me in the house on my own.”

Reflecting on the shocking and unexpected incident, Ms Creek said she still felt comfortable spending the day in her flat but with time, she would “eventually” return to sleeping there.

“They’re not going to get the better of me, this is my house,” she said.

“You can’t let something like that change your outlook on life.

“It has taken me a while to get over it, I don’t mind telling you but it could have been worse, he could of whacked me, but I would have whacked him first, I would have gone down fighting … wouldn’t you?”