STOPPED briefly by the side of a lonely stretch of road at Ryhope, a female driver initially thought the man who approached her vehicle and opened the door needed some help.
Then she saw the axe.
"It was when I saw the axe that I felt immediate terror," the woman, 37, said through tears during a moving victim impact statement in Newcastle District Court. "I froze in panic and shock as he climbed into the car. I believed that he was going to kill me and that I would never see my family again."
Two minutes.
That is how long the woman was stopped by the side of Wakefield Road on January 3 this year.
Ironically, the woman was dutifully obeying the law; stopping the car while on her work run to change the music on her phone.
But during that brief period, three people - on the run from police and in the midst of an interstate crime spree - came running out of bushland bordering the M1.
Career criminal and drug addict Wade Lawrence Jackson approached the woman's car, opened the door and raised an axe over his head, terrifying the woman.
"I remember him yelling and swearing at me and I stumbled out of the car and fell to the ground," the woman told the court.
Jackson got into the driver's seat and the woman said she feared he was going to reverse over her. "I believed that they were going to kill me," the woman said. But the trio sped away and headed south on the M1 where they were first involved in a high-speed police pursuit and then collided with another vehicle, hit a light pole and the car did a "complete flip".
Jackson and two others, a man and woman, were arrested. Jackson is no stranger to carjackings and police pursuits; he was jailed for five years in Queensland for a wild cross-country ride in a stolen Lexus, described by police as "three hours of anarchy".
He pleaded guilty to armed robbery and police pursuit in relation to the Ryhope carjacking and was jailed for a maximum of seven years, with a non-parole period of four-and-a-half years.
When my car door was opened... my first thought was that this person may need help. It was when I saw the axe that I felt immediate terror.
The female driver said in her victim impact statement.
