Grant Brown, a Melbourne father who chased down two boys in his underwear after they allegedly broke into his home, has criticised Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and the state’s handling of youth crime.
“It’s frightening,” he told the Today Show on Tuesday morning.
“One of them (alleged offenders) was on bail. The other one was released yesterday, two hours after he was arrested … it’s a real worry seeing the Premier on TV yesterday saying how tough we are on youth crime and on bail laws. It’s a load of rubbish. The actions don’t match the words at all.”
The father, now dubbed “Captain Underwear” after CCTV footage of the chase emerged, said the incident occurred at his Kinkora Rd home in Hawthorn around 3.25am on Monday when he noticed people inside.
“Saw a torchlight so yeah, just ripped out of bed,” he recalled.
“Got them out of the house pretty quick. Chased after them. They bolted up the street, so I legged it up after them and caught up with one of them.”
Brown also made one of the boys call the police on himself.
“He was trying to leg it over someone’s fence, so I pulled him back down,” he said.
“He was going a bit wild, then he managed to calm down a bit. He was saying, ‘Don’t hurt me, you can call the cops, just don’t hurt me’.”
Brown said the reason why he responded the way he did was because he wanted to protect his family/
“That’s why you react, you want to protect your family,” he said. “Just want to get them out of the house as quick as I could.”
Police took a 15-year-old into custody and later arrested a 14-year-old boy.
Investigators are also examining whether the boys were involved in an aggravated burglary in Elphin Grove just before the incident.
Speaking on Monday, Premier Jacinta Allan defended the state’s bail laws, saying they had been “toughened” to address violent acts by teens.
“The bail laws have been toughened here in Victoria, that if you are caught carrying a machete, once our ban on machete, once the amnesty period concludes, you will face fines of tens of thousands of dollars and up to five years imprisonment,” she said.
“And it is working … it is getting these dangerous weapons off the street.”
In March, the government passed laws to prioritise community safety in bail decisions and remove the principle of remand as a “last resort.”
Image: Nine News
