Cairns mother rams group of suspected teenage thieves with her minivan as crime wave hits QLD town

An Australian ‘supermum’ has taken on a gang of teenage troublemakers with her minivan after she suspected them of breaking into a neighbour’s house. 

Natasha Baddock, 48, was leaving for her kindergarten run on Friday morning when she noticed a suspicious white hatchback ‘loitering’ in her Bentley Park street in Cairns. 

Upon returning from school, she spotted the same car outside another neighbour’s house whose sliding door looked ‘jimmied open’.

It was then that she locked eyes with the four teenage occupants and decided to ‘take a stand’.

Still in her white minivan, she parked in front of their hatchback on her neighbour’s driveway, preventing them from driving off. 

‘They had been scoping the whole street out, it was the same car with the same four boys in it,’ Ms Baddock told The Cairns Post. 

She picked up her phone to call the police and, at that point, the group of boys who ‘couldn’t have been older than 15’ accelerated and rammed into her car.

But instead of panicking, Ms Baddock stood her ground. 

‘I just put the foot on the accelerator and I just drove that car backwards so they couldn’t drive off, they had already smashed my car,’ she said.

The boys then bolted on foot, leaving the car behind, while Ms Baddock stayed on the phone with police. 

‘I’m a pretty staunch woman and I’m a foster mum of six children, it is my duty to protect them,’ she said.

Queensland Police confirmed the white Toyota Corolla hatchback was reported stolen a few days earlier on September 28.

They urged anyone with information on the incident to contact police. 

Natasha Baddock (pictured) said she was fed-up with youth crime in her area and felt she had to ‘make a stand’

Cairns is currently battling a youth crime wave with some residents left wondering if they were living in sunny north Queensland or the ‘ghetto’.

Single mother Sarah Martin, also from Bentley Park, had her home broken into twice recently and her car keys stolen from her bedroom. 

According to police, the crime wave has seen more than 900 cars stolen in Cairns in 2022 – a new record. 

A multi-agency police operation to crack down on youth crime between September 24 and 25 recovered eight stolen cars and saw 17 people charged with 113 offences.

Locals are increasingly taking matters into their own hands, including anti-crime advocate Paul Drabble, who has created a buddy system-style citizens squad to help drive down crime.

He said it was about being ‘vigilant not a vigilante’. 

But Far North crime inspector Kevin Goan urged locals to let the police do their work, saying he wouldn’t want to see ‘some well-intentioned residents charged with a crime’.