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Rapist involved in Janine Balding murder jailed over child abuse material

A serial sex offender who participated in the abduction, rape and murder of bank teller Janine Balding has learnt his fate for another “very concerning” crime.

Australia's Court System

A serial sex offender who was involved in abducting, raping, and murdering bank teller Janine Balding has been jailed again after he viewed violent pornographic material.

Wayne Wilmot, 51, was released from prison last month and subjected to an interim supervision order with conditions such as electronic monitoring, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, and restricted use of the internet.

Yet only two weeks after his release, he was arrested and charged with breaching the conditions by searching for and viewing explicit child abuse material.

On Tuesday, Wilmot was beamed into Waverley Local Court from a custody cell to be sentenced after pleading guilty to failing to comply with his supervision order.

Wayne Wilmot has been charged with breaching his supervision order by viewing pornographic material. Picture NewsWire / Rocco Fazzari
Wayne Wilmot has been charged with breaching his supervision order by viewing pornographic material. Picture NewsWire / Rocco Fazzari

He wore a prison-issued green tracksuit and nodded along as his lawyer Dev Bhutani urged the court to consider imposing the minimum six-month sentence.

Mr Bhutani argued a “short sharp term of imprisonment” would deter his client from breaching the supervision order again.

The court was told Wilmot breached the court order restricting his internet use by searching for violent pornography, including “extreme” material involving underage women.

Magistrate Jacqueline Milledge noted Wilmot sought to access “significantly hardcore porn sites … involving gang sexual activity” by searching terms like “very very extreme hard f*** porn videos”.

According to court documents, he searched for group sex material involving 16 men and one woman and repeatedly requested violent and extreme pornography involving minors.

“This is very very concerning,” Ms Milledge said.

“It’s not like he’s just gone onto a dating site or anything like that.”

Police prosecutor Nicole McMahon told the court Wilmot minimised his role by “levelling blame at his phone”.

Police prosecutor Nicole McMahon told the court Wilmot had attempted to minimise his actions by “levelling blame at his phone”.

She said the 51-year-old complained that his phone had been plagued by pop up ads which had encouraged him to look at the explicit material.

Ms McMahon said the breach was “extremely serious” given the violent nature of the material and Wilmot’s history of “extreme violence and sexual offending”.

She noted he had not shown any remorse for his actions and argued the “real and extreme high risk” of Wilmot reoffending “could not be mitigated at all by any alternative.”

The police prosecutor pushed for the serial rapist to be jailed for two years over the breach.

“The longer Mr Wilmot is detained the longer the community at large will be protected,” Ms McMahon said.

“It would be the ultimate deterrent.”

Ms Milledge agreed Wilmot’s lengthy criminal record was “quite concerning, if not frightening”.

She accepted the rapist may have been “curious” about pop ups, but noted the terms of his supervision order “couldn’t be clearer that those sorts of sites were not to be accessed by you”.

After applying a discount for his early guilty plea, Ms Milledge sentenced the 51-year-old to 18 months behind bars.

Wilmot (right, dark jacket) has been in and out of jail since he was 15 years old. Picture: Uwe Kuessner
Wilmot (right, dark jacket) has been in and out of jail since he was 15 years old. Picture: Uwe Kuessner

The court was told Wilmot had only been out of jail for two brief stints since he was first incarcerated as a teenager.

“Since the age of 15, he’s been in custody almost continuously,” Mr Bhutani noted.

“(From) what I’ve read about his history, that’s where he belongs,” the magistrate retorted.

Earlier this year, Supreme Court Justice Helen Wilson described Wilmot as having a “disturbing history of sexual offending which he continues to deny or minimise”.

“He has no insight into the risk he poses to other, and refused to acknowledge a need for risk-management strategies,” she said.

Wilmot displayed “psychopathic personality traits” and represented a risk of violent reoffending, the state’s highest court was told.

He was 15 years old in September 1988 when he was involved in the shocking kidnapping, rape and murder of bank teller Janine Balding.

In a crime that shocked the state, Wilmot and a group of co-offenders travelled to Sutherland train station and abducted Ms Balding at knifepoint.

She was forced into a car driven by Wilmot and sexually assaulted in the back seat before being driven to an isolated area of western Sydney, where she was sexually assaulted again.

Janine Balding was sexually assaulted and murdered in Sydney’s western suburbs in 1988.
Janine Balding was sexually assaulted and murdered in Sydney’s western suburbs in 1988.

Wilmot remained in the car as the other youths drowned Ms Balding in a dam.

When he was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court in 1990, the judge accepted Wilmot “knew nothing of their decision to kill her afterwards” and was not involved in the murder.

The judge determined the then-15-year-old had not raped Ms Balding but he was guilty due to his involvement in the joint criminal enterprise.

Wilmot was jailed for nine years and four months over a raft of offences, including sexual intercourse without consent, detain with intent to gain advantage, and robbery in company.

He was released on parole in October 1996 but subsequently committed violent and sexual assaults against women.

Adelaide Lang

Adelaide Lang is a digital reporter for The Bowral News. Based in the Southern Highlands, she covers general local news with a focus on council, courts, and crime.

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/rapist-involved-in-janine-balding-murder-jailed-over-child-abuse-material/news-story/22be39f351985c13e47c195ff54b5f74