Three ban­dits were sent run­ning in fear for their lives af­ter a home­own­er opened fire on them dur­ing a home in­va­sion in Clax­ton Bay on Sun­day morn­ing.

The 32-year-old man, a hard­ware di­rec­tor, had se­cured his home around 10 pm on Sat­ur­day and went to bed. How­ev­er, around 5.05 am, his fa­ther alert­ed him to in­trud­ers who were try­ing to en­ter the up­per floor of the house.

Up­on view­ing the cam­era sur­veil­lance on his cell­phone, the man saw three men dressed in white and black cloth­ing with face masks and gloves en­ter­ing the up­per floor through the rear door.

Armed with his li­censed Glock 43x pis­tol, the busi­ness­man fired four rounds at the in­trud­ers, who ran off.

Po­lice be­lieve the ban­dits gained ac­cess in­side the house by pry­ing open a rear door on the south­ern side. It was not clear if any of the sus­pects were in­jured.