Manhunt as crim on run
Cops downplaying risk as Postcard Bandit’s accomplice evades custody
“HE’S a dangerous man.”
That’s how police on the ground have described Brendan Luke Karl Berichon, as a full-scale manhunt to catch the former most wanted criminal continued overnight.
Berichon was last night on the run. He was last seen drinking from a hose in the backyard of a Pacific Pines home on Tuesday.
While police media have played down the manhunt, several officers on the ground have told the Bulletin the search is the top priority for the district, with resources from across the southeast converging on the Coast to find a man with a chequered past who shot at police in the 1990s. POLICE SOURCE
A police source said it was the second time in the past six months that Berichon had done a runner from officers – the latest on a return to prison warrant, running from the cops into a wild bushfire burning in the Pacific Pines, Maudsland area.
Another source told the Bulletin Berichon has a violent past, and a mean streak.
“He was spotted on Tuesday afternoon at a person’s house off the bushland, he’d come out and grabbed a drink of water … we couldn’t find him from there,” a police source said.
“It’s no surprise that he is quite skilled at being on the run, when you consider his background, very slippery.
“He’s definitely violent and dangerous.”
Berichon’s history is part of Australian crime folklore, helping one of the country’s most notorious criminals escape prison.
He shot cover fire at police with a high-powered rifle for Postcard Bandit Brenden Abbott during an infamous 1990s prison break.
While on the run with Abbott he was labelled an “extremely dangerous criminal” who was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder for shooting at two police while on the run.
For two days in 1998 Berichon, then aged just 20 and known as Abbott’s “apprentice”, claimed the title as Australia’s most wanted man after Abbott was caught in a Darwin laundromat.
Last year, Berichon was convicted of possessing an “electrical antipersonnel device” at Nerang.
Yesterday, a police media
IT’S NO SURPRISE THAT HE IS QUITE SKILLED AT BEING ON THE RUN, WHEN YOU CONSIDER HIS BACKGROUND, VERY SLIPPERY. HE’S DEFINITELY VIOLENT AND DANGEROUS
spokeswoman said there was no need to issue a public warning about Berichon.
The spokeswoman said Berichon was not dangerous and confirmed he was last spotted in the semirural area.
Born in Newcastle in 1977, Berichon moved to Queensland with his family when he was young.
Berichon first met Abbott in the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre, Queensland’s highest security prison, after he was sentenced to twoyears in prison for armed robbery.
Abbott was serving 12 years for two armed robberies committed in Queensland after he escaped from Fremantle prison in 1989.
Berichon was reportedly “groomed” by Abbott in prison and threw bolt cutters to the escapees on the day of the jail break before firing at police.
At the time the use of the powerful weapon outside the prison was described as heralding “a new age of criminal aggression”.
Berichon’s mother, Julie Berichon, then from Salisbury, south of Brisbane, publicly appealed for her son to give himself up while he was on the run.