By ANEEKA SIMONIS
EVERY night, a little boy cries himself to sleep – terrified at what the night might bring.
The front door to his Beaconsfield home was kicked in by youth gangsters and stormed in early June.
Since then, it has been retargetted another two times.
For three weeks, he and his three siblings – aged six to 15 – slept on blow up mattresses in their parent’s bedroom because they were too scared to sleep alone.
His brother is suffering far worse post-traumatic stress symptoms following the invasion and threats – some far too intimate to report.
Children like these are the silent victims of the growing rate of home invasion terrorising families in the ‘safety’ of their own homes.
And sadly, the traumatic impacts felt by this family are no different to others swept up in the terror raids.
Up the road in another Beaconsfield house, a dad told how his 22-year-old daughter has been forbidden from getting out of the car and walking the length of her own driveway to get into the house at night due to repeated attacks on the family and their home.
They now have a security system where she must call him when she’s approaching the home, and he will wait in the driveway for her.
“If I am not there, she has to keep driving around the block. She’s been told not to get out unless I am there,” the 59-year-old father of two said.
Their home and cars have been retargeted five times since mid-June, including most recently on Saturday 16 July.
The Beaconsfield dad said a carload of youths cased a luxury car in their driveway at 12.39am, taking loud phone calls in the street before returning two hours later to try and steal the vehicle.
On other occasions, he has found youths photographing the car at night – and most seriously, he and his 28-year-old son were threatened with a pistol after batting back the gang’s attempts to access the home.
“They were trying to get through the security door. It was at 2am or 3am. I charged downstairs. My son was upstairs and he yelled, ‘don’t go outside dad, they have a gun’,” he recalled.
“They jumped back into their SUV, did a U-turn and stopped out the front of the house and leant out the window with a pistol … they told us they were going to shoot us.”
The mother of the four traumatised kids said her family had also been threatened with firearms.
She and her husband were lying in bed about 7.10am on Saturday 9 July when the terror began to unfold for the third time.
She found two youths in her driveway surrounding one of their luxury cars.
“I ran to the balcony and said ‘don’t even think about it, boys’. They laughed at me. They said ‘you’re fence is marked. We are going to come back tonight with guns and get these cars’. After that, they leisurely walked back to their car and drove off,” she said.
The threat never eventuated that night, but the family still live with the disturbing knowledge the gangsters have been at their house, and have no guarantee they won’t come back again.
About 4am on Thursday 2 June, the family woke to a loud bang.
“I ran downstairs. There was an eerie silence. I walked outside and saw two carloads full of people. They shone a spotlight on my face,” the mum said.
They had kicked the door in, stolen the keys to one of their luxury cars but did not manage to get away with the car.
But they now know the layout of the family’s Beaconsfield home.
“It’s horrendous. The kids hear it … you can’t hide it from them,” she said.
Neither family has had a proper sleep since being targetted. Both have upgraded their home security systems – one installation costing $10,000.
The Beaconsfield dad of two said each family member would take turns sitting up and watching out for the gang if they noticed suspicious activity in their street.
Both families believe penalties should be tougher for youths found guilty of committing these increasingly violent crimes.
“If they want to commit adult crimes, they need to be punished as adults. Penalties need to be tougher,” the Beaconsfield mum said.
Both families described the youths targeting their property as being of African appearance travelling in large groups.
Calls have been made by La Trobe MP Jason Wood to deport youth offenders on refugee visas back to their country of origin if they are found guilty of such crimes.
He’s also calling for the National Anti-Gang Squad to launch a large-scale offensive to stop youths in their tracks.
It’s unclear what percentage of youth offenders are non-permanent Australian citizens.
His calls have strong support by the Beaconsfield mum of five.
“If these people want to offend and traumatise families, they need to be deported along with their families. (Police) have no control over them,” she said.
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton and Minister for Justice and Counter-Terrorism Michael Keenan have weighed in on the issue.
