Grandma chases intruder as Brisbane groups raise alarm over crime

A 91-year-old great-grandmother has chased a thief from her home – recovering her handbag, but losing precious jewellery – as Queensland police faced pressure to stop crime in suburban neighbourhoods.

Feisty Joanna De Loryn, who goes by the name Jopie, was taking out her bins at her Holland Park West home on Wednesday when she spotted an intruder in the kitchen.

The man had entered by cutting through a bedroom screen door, De Loryn told Nine.

“So I went after him and I grabbed my handbag, and I ran after him over on the patio … I should have tossed the flowerpot on top of him, but I didn’t.”

“I yelled out at him,” she said, revealing she has called the thief a “dirty bastard”.

Despite her efforts, the intruder left with her engagement and anniversary rings, and a watch given to her by her late husband, Bart.

“You can buy another ring, but it’s not the same,” she said.

The Holland Park West woman said she had lived in her home for 65 years, and had daily phone calls and check-ins from her neighbours.

As for her thoughts for the intruder, she said: “Go and get yourself a job.”

The incident happened in a week when community concern about crime in Rochedale South – several suburbs to the south – drew the attention of the state government, prompting police to redirect resources to the area.

Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski told the ABC on Friday that property crime in Brisbane’s south was decreasing, although it remained high, but that personal crime, which included robberies and assaults, was increasing.

Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said police resources had been redirected to Brisbane’s south.Credit: William Davis

Since December, there has been a spate of linked break-ins and armed robberies in southern Brisbane and Logan suburbs – including Carindale, Eagleby, Underwood and Manly West.

Rochedale South residents have formed a 3000-strong neighbourhood watch group on Facebook, with some members patrolling the streets.

Speaking to Nine’s Today program, group founder Damion Douglass said crime in Rochedale South was “unpredictable”.

“People are scared, they’re just worried, and I got fed up,” he said.

Police Minister Dan Purdie told residents not to take matters into their own hands, and that harsher crime laws would make a difference over time.

“I think it’s disappointing when innocent members of the community who have got their own jobs and their own families feel like they have to give up their time to patrol their own street,” Purdie said.

Gollschewski commended the Rochedale community for being prepared, but warned that police did not want “vigilantism”.

“Communities banding together, being vigilant, providing information to the police, supporting each other, looking at crime prevention is a very good thing,” he said.

“We want to make sure that if it’s a dangerous situation, they are calling the police ... we don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”

Douglass said on Thursday the Rochedale community watch group was not a vigilante group. “We’re certainly not anti-police. We want to work with them,” he said.

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