TRUE CRIME SPECIAL
IT’S BEEN THREE DECADES SINCE KERRY’S DAUGHTER WAS MURDERED BUT THE PAIN IS STILL RAW
It’s been 30 years since Janine Balding was raped and murdered by a gang of homeless youths, a crime so savage it left the public baying for blood.
Vibrant young bank teller Janine was looking forward to her upcoming wedding and starting a family with her fiance Steven when her life was cruelly – and brutally – snuffed out.
‘She loved kids,’ her father Kerry tells New Idea in an exclusive interview. ‘I remember when [her mother] Bev came home with her younger sister, Gayle, she pretended it was hers. She was that kind of girl – desperate to be a mum,’
But sadly Janine never got the chance to fulfil that dream. The 20-year-old was on her way home from work on September 8, 1988, when she was abducted at knifepoint near Sutherland train station by five street kids.
Bronson Blessington, then 14, Matthew Elliott, 16, Stephen ‘Shorty’ Jamieson, 22, Wayne Wilmot, 15 and Carol Ann Arrow, 15, bundled Janine into her own Holden Gemini and drove off.
For the next hour, the terrified young woman was repeatedly raped in the back seat as the gang headed west along the freeway.
Janine’s mum Bev, who passed away in 2013, said at the time: ‘Here she was with five people and a knife, they were telling her they were going to murder her, how awful must that have been?
‘She must have screamed, she must have yelled, she must have pleaded, and not a single soul had a little bit of thought in their heart to say: “Don’t”.’
After what must have felt like hours, they reached a rural dam at Minchinbury. Janine was gagged and hogtied before being dragged to the water.
One of her rapists, Blessington, held Janine under while Matthew Elliott punched her in the stomach so she would swallow water and drown faster.
‘When we were told it was complete disbelief – it felt like it wasn’t real,’ Kerry, now 80, says.
‘We had to come to identify the body. That broke Bev’s heart because they had her behind a glass screen and Bev wanted to touch her daughter.
‘They took her car, took money out of her bank account... it was just awful,’ Kerry laments. ‘They didn’t see her as a human. They just said: “Let’s go and get a girl.” Who thinks that? Why would someone do that?
‘You walk around like a zombie for a while. Bev was wandering around the house saying again and again: “Why?” I just had to get out of the house to go to work.
‘I was crying my eyes out – I couldn’t stop.’
In the aftermath of his
daughter’s death, Kerry was horrified to learn there had been repeated calls to police about the gang in the hours leading up to Janine’s abduction.
Their first target, Kristine Mobberley, managed to slam her car door shut and escape before they grabbed her. She drove straight to the police station.
‘They [the police] got in their car and went to the wrong car park and left it at that. Now, that doesn’t seem right to me... it just doesn’t make sense,’ he says.
‘Witnesses reported they were harassing passengers.
‘This was also before Janine got taken... and nothing was done. Looking back, if one of the police had done their job then Janine would still be here.’
The harrowing court process also added to the Balding family’s heartache.
‘In court I was absolutely disgusted. Their language... they [the accused] were swearing and fighting, even after what they had done.
‘They spent a day complaining to the judge about how they were “mistreated”. They had murdered my daughter and they were complaining!’
‘There was no remorse that I could see – none at all. They would look around the courtroom and smirk at you.’
Elliott, Blessington and Jamieson were sentenced to life in prison, never to be released, for Janine’s murder.
Wilmot – who was released on parole after serving seven years – was locked up again after he went on to commit further sex attacks.
Arrow was released on a good behaviour bond after being convicted of being an accessory to Janine’s murder.
‘We went to look inside jails,’ Kerry says. ‘We wanted to see how they would be living. We got talking to the guards, who also wrote to us, later telling us what was going on.
‘The accommodation was too good for them. They get three good meals and free medical. They were living better in jail than they were out of it – they were almost rewarded for killing her.’
Kerry is worried that three decades on, little has been learnt from his daughter’s death.
‘Things haven’t changed since. The injustice is still there. Nothing is being done. Australia is growing, and with the good people being brought in, there’s also the bad,’ he says.
‘They need to realise that these are human beings – not just numbers. We felt like that’s all we were – just another case, another number.’
Yet despite everything that his family has been through, Kerry refuses to be overwhelmed by anger.
’You can’t let it get you down because once you get in that place it can be damn hard to get back up again. Anger can destroy you.’
‘THEY DIDN’T SEE HER AS A HUMAN. THEY JUST SAID: “LET’S GO AND GET A GIRL.” WHO THINKS THAT?’