Queensland grandad confronts intruders in terrifying alleged Ipswich home invasion: ‘Didn’t have time to think’

Queensland grandfather Don Currie was confronted by two armed men who allegedly broke into his daughter’s Ipswich home and shot at him during a violent encounter on Monday afternoon.

The intruders allegedly burst into the Ripley home about 1.25pm and allegedly assaulted him before firing a number of shots and fleeing, one in a white Mitsubishi Magna, and the other on a blue motorbike, police said.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Grandad’s brave act when armed intruders allegedly raid home.

A 27-year-old man was arrested about 15km away in Bundamba a short time later, however police are searching for another man believed to be involved in the alleged attack.

The 27-year-old was charged with two counts of burglary and one count each of unlawful use of a motor vehicle, serious assault, assault occasioning bodily harm whilst armed, acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and driving whilst disqualified.

Currie suffered a broken arm in the incident and is still in shock.

“I was yelling at them to get out of the house, and next minute, this dude comes round to the back of the Christmas tree, and he just says ‘I’m gonna shoot’ and just went bang,” Currie said on Sunrise on Wednesday.

“I didn’t have time to think so I just ducked behind the wall.

“He stuck the gun out the window, which I thought I could grab it and pull him out the window with it. He put it out on an angle and fired again and he missed luckily.

“I got back in front of the window, then he come out and she was on!”

Sunrise host Matt Shirvington then asked: “At any point, Don, did you think to yourself ‘he’s got a gun, I’m gonna stay away?’”

“No! I said ‘I’m gonna take it off him, and bash him with it’,” Currie replied.

Currie said when one of the men got inside a car, his painter friend Peter Jackson, who was working on Currie’s nearby home, came in with a star picket (a piece of steel used as an anchoring point for fences) to help him.

“The bloke that’s painting my house. He comes flying up after he heard the gunshots and he was wielding a star picket and smashed the back window and all the side windows,” Currie said.

“Whilst he was doing that, I was feeding punches through the driver’s side window at the driver and trying to grab the keys, but unfortunately, couldn’t grab them.

“After Peter smashed all the windows, the driver turned around and (allegedly) aimed the gun at Peter and he ducked for cover and then the fella just reversed, flying backwards and forwards until he run (sic) over both of us.

“He was crashing into my beautiful ute at the same time and that’s the way he pushed it out of the road because I had him locked in and he pushed it out of the road by ramming it off and took off down the road.”

Currie’s daughter, Allyson Hodgson, whose home was invaded, also joined the show where she described her reaction when she heard about the incident.

“I was in complete disbelief. I was like ‘What?! It’s Monday at 1.25pm! Who’s robbing our house?!’ My immediate thought went to my son, because he was at home.

“I was so worried that something could’ve happened to him and then I got the call to say there was a gun and I was just ... it was like a movie. I just couldn’t believe it.”

Currie said he thought before confronting the alleged intruders they were likely to be youths.

“When I approached the window initially, I didn’t think for one second that the bloke was gonna point a gun and fire it at me,” Currie said.

“I thought it would’ve been young kids, school holidays or something, you know, breaking into the house, looking for money or something so I thought I’d be able to scare them pretty easy.”

He said he hoped the alleged offenders felt the full force of the law.