By ANNA USHER

A Mosman father chased a gang of car thieves down his own street on foot at 3am, powerless to stop them as they sped off in his two cars.

The resident, who does not wish to be named, woke to find intruders had climbed two flights of stairs inside his Carrington Avenue home on Sunday morning, taking two sets of car keys left on the kitchen bench.

Everything else, including a wallet and an expensive watch, was left untouched.

“The dog started barking and I woke up to our two Audi’s leaving the driveway,” the man told Mosman Collective.

He gave chase in the dark, but it was never going to be a fair race.

“I ran down Carrington and up Glen Street, but given they were in our cars and I was on foot, they had the upper hand,” he said.

Children squeezing through doggy doors

The man is one of a growing number of lower north shore residents waking to find their garages empty.

Children are being recruited by organised criminals and “post and boast” joyriders to crawl through doggy doors and pet flaps to steal keys to luxury high-performance cars while families sleep, North Shore Police say.

The young thieves are squeezing through the flaps to grab keys to BMWs, Audis and Land Rover Discovery’s, then handing the vehicles to joyriders or organised crime groups across the city.

Some of the cars end up in police pursuits, with the drivers boasting on social media about the speeds they hit.

North Shore Police confirmed a recent spate of thefts from homes in Mosman, Kirribilli and Castlecrag, as well as Lindfield and Greenwich.

North Shore Police Area Commander, Superintendent Paul Devaney, said there had been a spike in the past two weeks in night-time break-and-enter offences targeting high-performance vehicles.

“Some of these offences, we know, have occurred with persons entering the premises at night through doggy doors,” Supt Devaney said.

“We suspect that they’re quite young offenders involved. When they are entering through a doggy door, they are obviously small in stature.”

He said the thieves were not looking for a confrontation.

“They are trying to enter the premises by stealth and take the keys, and the vehicles, without the knowledge of the occupants,” he said.

39 break-ins in a year

The break-ins are being investigated by Strike Force Sweetenham, working out of North Sydney police station, which targets teenagers and organised criminals who break into homes to steal high-end cars.

Over the past 12 months, there were 39 north shore break-and-enters involving car thefts, Supt Devaney said.

Two cars gone before dawn

Mosman resident Chris Yates told the Daily Telegraph he recently lost two cars from his garage, a BMW X6 and a Land Rover Discovery, after thieves broke into his home through a side door.

After grabbing the keys from near the front door, they reversed one car through a locked gate across the driveway.

CCTV from a neighbour’s property showed the two vehicles speeding away, followed by a third car believed to have dropped the thieves at the scene.

“We’ve got four kids. It’s left them pretty rattled,” Mr Yates said.

“The BMW was involved in a high-speed chase with the police at Maroubra a couple of hours later. That chase was aborted by the police due to the speed.”

What police want you to do

Supt Devaney is urging residents to lock up, secure their pet doors and fit a tracking device to their vehicles.

“We are asking that people lock their doors at night. If you have a doggy door, try and secure it,” he said

Have you been targeted? Mosman Collective wants to hear from you. Email [email protected]