{"id":810692,"date":"2026-07-19T18:49:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T18:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/810692\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T18:49:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T18:49:27","slug":"coles-bay-rallies-to-help-76-year-old-whose-home-was-torched-by-intruders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/810692\/","title":{"rendered":"Coles Bay rallies to help 76-year-old whose home was torched by intruders"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Coles Bay community has turned out in force to help a 76-year-old man whose home was allegedly torched by intruders who beat him and bound him earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Volunteers gathered at Grant Whelan\u2019s property on Saturday to sift through debris in the hope of recovering precious belongings including a lifelong coin collection, army badges and a bravery medal.<\/p>\n

His daughter Chantel Yates posted on social media thanking everyone who showed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cA massive thank you to everyone who turned up yesterday to help Dad, we honestly can\u2019t get over it,\u201d Yates wrote.<\/p>\n

\"\"Grant Whelan was discharged from the Royal Hobart Hospital on Thursday night. Image \/ WIN News<\/p>\n

She said Granite Freycinet Cafe provided egg and bacon rolls and coffees for the volunteers.<\/p>\n

Aris and Perry Whelan brought machinery to help with the effort.<\/p>\n

\"\"Grant Whelan\u2019s property was allegedly set alight by intruders on July 11<\/p>\n

\u201cColes Bay really is something special. Dad\u2019s overwhelmed, in the best way,\u201d Yates said.<\/p>\n

Vanessa Whelan, another of Grant Whelan\u2019s daughters, told Pulse ahead of the clean-up that the family needed help to go through the wreckage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just need the hands to go through it \u2019cause it\u2019s a bit of a dirty, yucky job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A GoFundMe page set up to help fund a rebuild has reached around $80,000.<\/p>\n

\"\"Volunteers gathered at the Coles Bay property on Saturday to sift through debris<\/p>\n

Police allege two masked men broke into the rural property armed with a crowbar around 5am on July 11, assaulted Whelan and forced him to reveal the location of a firearms safe.<\/p>\n

They allegedly stole guns, cash and his Toyota Hilux before binding his hands and feet with cable ties, dragging him into the yard and setting the house alight.<\/p>\n

Three men, two aged 31 and one aged 29, were arrested on Thursday across Launceston and charged with offences including aggravated armed robbery, assault and arson.<\/p>\n

Police say 15 licensed firearms are yet to be recovered.<\/p>\n

\"\"Whelan said the attack was the worst thing that could ever have happened to him. Image \/ WIN News<\/p>\n

Vanessa Whelan said her father was determined to rebuild on the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a stubborn old bloke and he doesn\u2019t want them to defeat him in his lifestyle that he really, really enjoyed up there,\u201d she told Pulse on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Coles Bay community has turned out in force to help a 76-year-old man whose home was allegedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-810692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}