Lester Wilkinson, 74, his wife Helen, 60, and daughter Maddyson, 24, were asleep when their doorbell camera alerted them to a chilling scene at 5.26am on Wednesday, August 14. 

Three teenagers armed with weapons had spotted a Mercedes Benz in their driveway and started smashing their way through the home’s glass front door. 

Mr Wilkinson grabbed a large torch and ran to confront the thieves in the hallway. 

A 17-year-old boy armed with a hammer wielded it above Mr Wilkinson’s head, threating to smash his skull while demanding the keys to the Mercedes Benz. 

Mr Wilkinson refused to give in to the thug’s demands. 

“Everybody always says ‘just give them what they want’ but I said no. This is my house,” Mr Wilkinson said.

“I saw the look on that kid’s face when he was threatening me,” he said.

“I was resisting him, refusing him, and he was confused and didn’t know what to do,” he said. 

The other 17-year-old boy armed with a golf club began lashing out in anger, smashing a glass side table and various decorative items. 

Glass shards sprayed metres down the hallway and embedded in the walls.

The trio left empty-handed in a previously stolen car. Minutes later they car-jacked a man at knife-point at Jeffery’s Motel in Ruthven Street, then fled to Goondiwindi. 

Mr Wilkinson said the home invasion had greatly affected their lives. 

“I used to get up at 5am every day and go for a long bike ride but when my alarm sounded on the morning of the attack, it was foggy and thankfully I decided not to go,” Mr Wilkinson said.

“Since the attack (10 weeks ago), I have only been on one ride as my daughter is afraid that if I am out riding, someone will come and break-in again,” he said. 

“Maddyson wouldn’t stay in the house alone for a long time afterwards and we both went to counselling.”

The family has since spent thousands of dollars installing security screens and purchasing additional security cameras. 

“Now we have this new routine every night where I have a baseball bat next to the bed, we have a deadbolt across the front door, and all the security screens are key-locked,” Mr Wilkinson said.

“My daughter makes sure I’ve locked and double checked all the doors, then I switch my phone status to away so the security camera will automatically sound a siren if anyone approaches, and she sleeps with the bedroom door open to listen for noises,” he said. 

Mr Wilkinson’s bare feet prevented him from chasing the offenders out the front door because broken glass covered the floor. 

“Now I have a plan where I get up, grab my weapon, shoes, and head to the front door. I’ve even timed it, it takes 30 seconds,” he said. 

Member for Toowoomba South David Janetzki MP said the Wilkinson family, like many other Toowoomba families, had been forced to turn their house into a fortress just to feel safe.

“Hearing Lester relive the details of his attack and watching the CCTV footage is deeply disturbing. My heart goes out to his family,” Mr Janetzki said.

“These hardcore youth criminals have left deep, lasting scars on the lives of too many Toowoomba families,” he said. 

“Under Labor we’ve seen more and more young people become hardcore repeat offenders,” he said.

“Ending Labor’s crime crisis starts with stopping the pipeline of hardcore youth offenders who don’t fear the law and don’t believe there are consequences for crime.”

Mr Wilkinson agreed there needed to be better consequences for actions. 

“They (youth) need to fear the law because at the moment, they don’t,” Mr Wilkinson said. 

“That’s the look I saw standing face-to-face with one of them – he was thinking ‘I’m coming in here to get what I want, no one will stop me and I can get away with it’,” he said.