Janine Balding
Encyclopedia
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
by multiple perpetrators. Twenty-year-old Janine Balding was raped and murdered by a gang of five youths on 8 September 1988.
Balding's murder is often compared to the 1986 murder of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
nurse Anita Cobby
Anita Cobby murder
Anita Lorraine Cobby was an Australian registered nurse and beauty pageant winner. At 26 years old, she was abducted from Blacktown, and raped and murdered at nearby Prospect, on the evening of 2 February 1986...
.
Early life
Janine Balding was born on 6 October 1967 and lived in Wagga Wagga, New South WalesWagga Wagga, New South Wales
Wagga Wagga is a city in New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, and with an urban population of 46,735 people, Wagga Wagga is the state's largest inland city, as well as an important agricultural, military, and transport hub of Australia...
before moving to Sydney and gaining employment as a bank teller
Bank teller
A teller is an employee of a bank who deals directly with most customers. In some places, this employee is known as a cashier. Most teller jobs require cash handling experience and a high school diploma. Most banks provide on the job training....
at a branch of the State Bank
State Bank of New South Wales
The State Bank of New South Wales was a bank that was owned by the Government of New South Wales. It existed from 1933 until 2000, when it was taken over by the Commonwealth Bank....
on George Street
George Street, Sydney
George Street is one of Sydney's most notable city streets. There are more high rise buildings and more ASX 100 companies located here than anywhere else in Australia, and is well known for being busy around-the-clock...
. She was due to marry boyfriend Steven Moran in March 1989. The couple had purchased a house in Berkeley Vale
Berkeley Vale, New South Wales
Berkeley Vale is a suburb of the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. It is part of the Wyong Shire local government area.Wyong Road is the main road that runs through Berkeley Vale...
and were renting their house to help finance their wedding arrangements.
Abduction and murder
Balding was abducted from Sutherland railway station by a group of homeless youths, consisting of four males, and one female. She was repeatedly raped by three of the male offenders, bludgeoned, then hog-tiedHogtie
The hogtie is a method of tying the limbs together, rendering the subject immobile and helpless. Originally, it was applied to pigs and other young four-legged animals.- Details :...
and drowned in a dam at Minchinbury
Minchinbury, New South Wales
Minchinbury is a suburb in western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Minchinbury is located 39 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Blacktown and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region.Minchinbury is...
.
Accused
- Matthew James Elliott, aged 16 at the time of the murder
- Bronson Matthew Blessington, aged 14 at the time of the murder
- Stephen Wayne 'Shorty' Jamieson, aged 22 at the time of the murder
- Wayne Lindsay Wilmot, aged 15 at the time of the murder
- Carol Ann Arrow, aged 15 at the time of the murder
In sentencing the defendants, Justice [Newman] said:
- To sentence people so young to a long term of imprisonment is of course a heavy task. However, the facts surrounding the commission of these crimes are so barbaric that I believe I have no alternative other than to impose upon [these] young prisoners, even despite their age, a life sentence. So grave is the nature of this case that I recommend that none of the prisoners in the matter should ever be released.
In 2007, Elliott and another defendant (presumably Blessington, but identified only as "B" due to his age) were granted an additional appeal based on a missing staple in their files. Essentially, it was argued, because the Crown indictment was not stapled to the court file, it was not "fixed" to the court file as required by law and the judgement was therefore not technically finalised. The High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
subsequently rejected this ground of appeal.
Summary of sentences
| Defendant | |Convictions | DNA DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in... techniques to review the DNA evidence of the crime. This was done because Stephen 'Shorty' Jamieson denied taking part in the murder, and one of the murderers had claimed that it was 'Shorty' Wells (rather than 'Shorty' Jamieson) who had committed the murder. The DNA results demonstrated that Stephen Jamieson's DNA was not found in a rectal swab of the victim, and neither was the DNA of 'Shorty' Wells. Police Minister John Watkins announced that the NSW Innocence Project would be suspended. Subsequently, accomplice Carol Arrow stated that 'Shorty' Jamieson was one of the murderers. External links
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
|
|---|