By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
A PANIC-STRICKEN Kooweerup woman who feared her husband had been killed by hoon drivers in Dandenong South said she’s “lost faith” in the police system.
Colleen Thurling spent Tuesday night at home desperately calling for police assistance after her husband David was forced to hide in the backseat of his car in Remington Drive for more than three hours after dozens of people with up to nine cars took part in an illegal drag race.
David, who had been trapped in his car since around 10pm, never saw any police arrive and made a dash out of the street about 1.30am when the street racing appeared to stop.
Feeling there was nowhere left to turn Colleen emailed radio station 3AW, where she was interviewed on Thursday morning about the incident.
Colleen later told the Journal that her husband had contacted her in distress after he had arrived in Remington Drive to pick up some firewood after his afternoon shift.
Between the two of them it’s understood they called triple zero four times and Dandenong Police Station once over a three-and-a-half-hour period from about 10.05pm to 1.30am.
“The last I heard was they (hoons) were all around David, parked next to him, and he couldn’t text back because he didn’t want to alert them to the fact he was in the car with the light from his phone,” Mrs Thurling said.
“I told police he was in danger, I was really distressed.
“I’ve lost a lot of faith in the system.
“I understand they have other priorities, but you ring the police for a reason.”
The hoons had sprayed Remington Drive with water from a nearby fire hydrant and were drifting erratically down the wet road.
“I laid all my clothes out on the bed, because being late at night I was in my pyjamas and I thought I was going to get a knock on the door to get to hospital,” Mrs Thurling said.
“At one stage he had to hide under a blanket in the backseat when they were close to the car, he laid back pretending he was asleep.
“When I finally got a text message after not hearing from him for 20 minutes my reply was thank God – I thought you were dead.”
A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the incident had originally been allocated to an operation response unit because “local units were engaged with higher priority incidents of which they could not leave.”
She said the Operations Response Unit attended Remington Drive around 10.45pm but the alleged hoons had “left the scene.”
“Further calls were received after this point from both Mrs Thurling and local business owners, however all units were still engaged with other tasks and could not be diverted,” the spokeswoman said.
“The divisional supervisor SSV 251 attended the location at 1.33am but no hoon activity was present and they were unable to locate the complainant and as such cleared the area.”
Local Area Commander Inspector Bruce Kitchen has apologised directly to Mrs Thurling because police had failed to keep her updated during the incident.
