Over the past five years, there have been over 100 at­tacks against res­i­dents of Wood­brook.

The lat­est at­tacks were a home in­va­sion where an 85-year-old woman was bru­tal­ly beat­en along with her am­putee son, a rob­bery and at­tempt­ed rape.

But new­ly-elect­ed coun­cil­lor June Durham said the res­i­dents in­tend to fight back, with sev­er­al an­ti-crime mea­sures de­signed to keep their com­mu­ni­ty safe.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice and the coun­cil­lor, over one week ago, a group of thieves en­tered a house via an al­ley near Pe­tra Street where they made their way in­to the home of the el­der­ly woman.

The woman, who was in the bath­room at the time was bad­ly beat­en and had sev­er­al blows to the head with a gun butt.

Her son, who had one of his legs am­pu­tat­ed re­cent­ly, was in his room when they en­tered and al­so at­tacked him.

The men de­mand­ed mon­ey and man­aged to leave with an undis­closed amount of cash, in­clud­ing US cur­ren­cy and a vault that con­tained im­por­tant doc­u­ments in­clud­ing birth cer­tifi­cates. Their im­ages were cap­tured on home sur­veil­lance cam­eras and were soon cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia, where they went vi­ral in the hope that they are iden­ti­fied.

Those cir­cu­lat­ing the im­ages hoped the sus­pects re­spec­tive where­abouts would be as­cer­tained and re­port­ed to the po­lice so that they can be ar­rest­ed and brought to jus­tice.

Al­so, a few days ago, about sev­en o’clock one week­day morn­ing a busi­ness­woman was con­front­ed just out­side her house and dragged to the back of her home where an at­tempt­ed as­sault was made. She, how­ev­er, man­aged to es­cape and ran out on­to the road­way for help. Her as­sailant grabbed her bag in­stead and ran off.

An­oth­er el­der­ly per­son was held up in his home and robbed.

Sev­er­al re­ports have been lodged at the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion and of re­cent times, res­i­dents have seen an in­crease in po­lice pa­trols in the area.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia, res­i­dent and new­ly elect­ed coun­cil­lor June Durham con­firmed that there have been sev­er­al home in­va­sions, rob­beries and at­tacks in the area but ad­mit­ted that many go un­re­port­ed to the po­lice.

She, how­ev­er, said that soon there will be “bright lights” in­stalled along streets in a bid to prop­er­ly il­lu­mi­nate the area at night time.

She said there will al­so be the es­tab­lish­ment of “watch groups” where What­sApp chats will be cre­at­ed so that res­i­dents can send alerts to one an­oth­er.