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Why you should never blink your lights to warn other drivers about the police
- Former Police Sergeant Glenn Gorick has warned drivers who flash their lights
- He said warning other drivers about police on the road could also warn criminals
- Mr Gorick recalled how flashing lights helped a group of murderers in 1988
- The youths traveled from Sutherland to Blacktown and killed Janine Balding
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A former police officer has begged drivers never to blink the lights to warn people of patrol cars revealing that a group of killers used the signal to evade police before killing a young woman.
Glenn Gorick, a former NSW police officer, appeared on The Richlife Project podcast and talked about drivers using the usual flashing technique to avoid a speeding ticket.
Mr Gorick said that while the simple action may seem harmless, it can in fact warn criminals.
The former cop gave an example of how that warning likely helped a group of homeless youths in the 1988 murder of 20-year-old Janine Balding.
Former NSW police officer Glenn Gorick (pictured) has warned motorists about the risk of flashing their lights to warn other drivers of police on the road
Mr Gorick explained that while the simple action can help criminals who are wanted by the police or who have stolen a car (stock image)
“People with flashing headlights, that’s to slow people down or whatever from getting a speeding ticket, you know, so be it, but you also tell people who are wanted, people who are in a stolen car: “The police are gone,” he said.
“Janine Balding, she was picked up from Sutherland train station on Tuesday night (in 1988) and taken to Blacktown, where she was murdered.”
Gorick said the killers were asked how they could drive all the way to Blacktown in the late 1980s “when RBT was huge” without seeing police.
He said the killers said to the police, ‘Oh no, people were flashing their headlights, we were just coming through the backstreets.’
“So Janine lost her life because someone might have flashed their headlights,” Mr. Gorick added.
Janine was kidnapped by a gang of youths and driven to Blacktown in western Sydney.
The perpetrators – Matthew James Elliott, Bronson Matthew Blessington, Stephen Wayne “Shorty” Jamieson, Wayne Lindsay Wilmot and Carol Ann Arrow – were all teenagers aged 14 to 16, with the exception of Jamieson who was 22.
The former cop explained how flashing lights helped a group of homeless youth evade police on the road and kill Janine Balding (pictured) in 1988
The five perpetrators of the sick crime, four of whom were teenagers at the time, kidnapped Janine from Sutherland train station, drove her to Blacktown, raped her and then drowned her in a nearby dam (pictured, one of the perpetrators Bronson Blessington, who was 14)
The group stopped on the side of the M4 motorway where Elliott, Blessington and Jamieson raped her with a knife.
They tied her up and dragged her to a nearby estate before drowning her in a dam.
All five youths were later arrested and charged with the sick crime.
Elliott, Blessington and Jamieson were sentenced to life plus 25 years.
Wilmot was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison and was released in 1996. He is currently in prison for numerous sexual assaults and robberies.
Arrow was sentenced to three years of good conduct plus 19 months behind bars.