A WESTVILLE family is still recovering from the traumatic ordeal of being attacked by an intruder, who allegedly used a service delivery vehicle to lure the family out of their house.
On Wednesdsay, 4 November, Julie Hauxwell was home with her two daughters, Annabelle (11) and Gabriella (13), when the gate bell rang at around 6.30pm. They had just received their KFC order 15 minutes earlier and thought that it was the driver returning. The two girls went outside to the gate to find a delivery man from another fast food outlet. He had a delivery for their address but under a different surname.
According to Julie, this is not the first time this has happened as on Monday, 2 November, the same thing happened using another fast food outlet, but she didn’t open the gate and just told the driver that he had the wrong person.
As the two girls were returning to the house, two armed men came over the back fence, jumped down the bank and grabbed the two girls, knocking them down and hitting them with guns. The girls fought back. Gabriella managed to kick the one in the crotch area while Annebelle let out some bloodcurdling screams which alerted neighbours and their mom.
When Julie appeared, the one suspect ran away but the other suspect, described as tall and skinny with a bandana over the bottom half of his face, herded the family back into the house, where he made them lie on the lounge floor. He kept hitting them with the gun, swearing and threatening to shoot them.
The family dogs, Jack Russell cross Malteses, were nipping at his heels and he kept threatening to shoot them as well, but made no attempt to do so. He also made no attempt to take anything in the house or ask for anything.
Julie said they can’t verify whether the gun used was a real gun, but it was a big, solid firearm. According to Gabriella, the man sounded like a foreigner and spoke good English and was well dressed.
It felt very unreal and at times I kept waiting for it to be a bad joke, as his bandana kept slipping and he would stop, put the gun under his arm and pull his bandana up again. Instead of feeling scared, I was angry that he was doing this to us and with my dad not being home I felt like I had to do something to protect my mom, – said a very brave Gabriella.
Gabriella had managed to hide her cellphone in her ‘onesy’ and told the intruder she needed the toilet. Despite threats by the man to shoot her, Gabriella escaped to the bathroom and dialled ADT.
Julie managed to get her and Annebelle into the main bedroom and pulled a chest of drawers in front of the door. She said the scary part was the man was still trying to get to them, but in that moment of fear she found the strength to keep the door closed. Also of concern to her was she wasn’t sure what was happening to Gabriella. She waited until there was silence before venturing out and pushing the panic button.
The man managed to flee with her handbag but hadn’t taken anything else. The police and ADT arrived and made sure the family was safe.
Julie said that in ten years the family have had no incidents but since having workers on the property in August, there have been a few small cases, but this attack was very sophisticated and well-planned. They found an out of order sign attached to the electric gate, which doesn’t work, and a raised circle of stones with a stick on top, pointing to the second entrance gate. There was also a water bottle placed on the back gate at the easiest access point.
Julie said they wanted to warn people as this seems to be a new way for criminals to gain access to properties by using delivery men as their way of getting into properties.
She said the one positive thing about the attack was that she had met neighbours that she hadn’t met in ten years of living there, and that it was making the neighbours band together to look out for one another, and that her girls had become closer as a result of the ordeal that they went through.
“I was also so proud of my girls, whose actions helped save us. I would never have thought of hiding a cellphone or making my way to the bathroom as I was just trying to be as passive as possible, but the girls fought back and wouldn’t give in.”
Gabriella added, – I was really proud of Annabelle, I didn’t realise she was capable of screaming like that.
The owner of the fast food outlet involved said he was very concerned about this incident and was doing everything he could to assist the family with information. He said they haven’t heard of any other cases of this happening but they have had a few of their drivers targeted and money and food taken from them.
“We know the family very well as they are good customers of ours. On that night, our driver spoke to the two daughters and then drove off, but he noticed a Polo driving slowly down the road.”
He did say unfortunately with the number of phone calls they received a day there was no way of confirming that the telephone number matched the address unless a landline was used. But that he was willing to help with the investigation in any way that he could.
“They seemed to be targeting this customer as they had already tried to get in using another fast food delivery first. I don’t think this was a random incident but a cleverly masterminded plan by an organised crime syndicate. I have tried phoning the cellphone number they gave several times and it just rings and appears to be a bogus number.”
