Rolling-pin gran: I gave it to him

Lois Thompson, 76, tells how she bashed a teen intruder, then worried she might have 'damaged' him. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Pensioner Lois Thompson says the kids in her neighbourhood probably think she can be "a bit grumpy" at times.

"I tell them to get off my fence and climb on their own fence," says the 76-year-old.

"They say, 'We haven't got one', so I say to them, 'Well tell your parents to build one'."

Now the Hamilton great-grandmother has cemented her fierce reputation by using her rolling pin to fight off a teenager who tried to break into her house.

Mrs Thompson was asleep when she heard loud banging and a crash at the back door of her home early last Saturday.

She awoke to find an intoxicated young boy yelling and swearing at her to let him inside.

"I got up and there was this young man who was drunk or out-of-it - I don't know," she said.

"He said he lived here and I said, 'No you don't', but he kept yelling and swearing and banging on the door."

The debate continued for the next 15 minutes and Mrs Thompson, who has lived in the house since the mid-1970s, called a police operator, who could hear over the phone the boy yelling abuse.

Despite Mrs Thompson warning the 15-year-old that the police were on their way, the boy refused to leave and became more insistent and increasingly agitated.

He then put his fist through the glass pane and, poking his head through, tried to unlock the door.

"So I grabbed my rolling pin and really gave it to him," said Mrs Thompson.

"And then I thought, 'Oh, I hope I haven't broken his teeth or his nose', but I really let fly. I hoped I really hadn't damaged him."

After receiving at least three blows to the head, the teenager slumped back on to the doorstep, crying and holding his face.

Police arrived not long after and found that the boy - who had had a "wee accident" and had stripped down to his boxer shorts - was keen to be taken away.

Mrs Thompson says her neighbourhood is "much different" from the one she moved in to decades ago with her husband, who passed away nearly 10 years ago, but believes her home is still safe and has no plans to move.

But the incident has shocked and angered many in her community, including a Mongrel Mob associate who told the Herald that if he found the boy responsible, he "wouldn't mind giving him a tune-up myself".

"You don't do those things to the old people," he said.

Meanwhile, Mrs Thompson, who bakes regularly for local family members, has a big chunk out of her rolling pin.

"It could have been where I hit that boy," she said. "I've had it forever, it does a good job and there's no point in getting rid of it."

The boy was bailed to his parents' care and referred to the police Youth Aid section.