Hours of video footage captured before and after an Indigenous teenager was fatally bashed have been instrumental in framing the prosecution’s case against his four accused murderers.
Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy, died 10 days after he was allegedly chased, knocked to the ground and “deliberately struck to the head” with a metal pole in Perth’s eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.
Aleesha Louise Gilmore, 23, her then boyfriend Jack Steven James Brearley, 24, and his friends, Brodie Lee Palmer, 29, and Mitchell Colin Forth, 27, are on trial in the West Australian supreme court for Cassius’ murder.
Prosecutor Ben Stanwix says Brearley delivered the fatal blows while “hunting for kids” after his car windows were smashed, and alleges Forth and Palmer aided him and, along with Gilmore, shared a common purpose.
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Brearley denies wielding the pole, saying he only punched Cassius after the teen knifed him. He says it was Palmer who bashed Cassius with it, which Palmer denies.
Dozens of CCTV video clips were played for the jury during the mammoth 12-week trial, including hours of footage recorded by a motion-activated camera at the home Gilmore shared with Brearley and her family.The prosecution alleges some footage shows the group with weapons, including knuckle dusters, a baseball bat, an axe and shopping trolley parts.“Somebody smashed my car and they’re about to die,” Brearley is accused of saying in one video.The same camera also captured Gilmore’s mother discussing by phone the attack on Cassius in the hours afterwards.Prosecutors say Brearley was bragging on the other end of the call, with a voice heard saying, “He was lying in a field and I was smacking him with a trolley pole so hard.”Brearley denied it. He also insisted it wasn’t him mocking Cassius when the voice mimics the teen saying, “I’m so sorry, don’t hurt me.”Yet he agreed during his week in the witness box that he and Palmer re-enacted the bashing, which was also recorded on CCTV, and blamed each other for the murder.Palmer told the jury he was “full of piss” the day Cassius was targeted and waited in his ute near when Brearley ran into bushland with a pole after a group of teens including Cassius.
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He said Brearley yelled for help and said he’d been stabbed, and that when he walked into the scrub, he found Brearley standing over a blood-covered Cassius.Brearley’s version is that he chased Cassius towards a creek, and after the teen slowed and tripped on a piece of wire, the pair ended up in the dirt.He told the jury Cassius stabbed him in the leg with a steak knife, and he tried to flee, but the teen held on to him, so he punched him.He said he landed two blows on Cassius’s face and called out to Palmer because he had been stabbed.Brearley, who is also accused of trying to frame another man for the alleged murder, said Palmer, whom he allegedly sold drugs for, appeared on the scene with a shopping trolley handle and was the one who hit Cassius.But a murder weapon has not been found.In one police interview, Brearley told detectives there were 20 armed “kids” mouthing off at him, and he ran at them.He said he chased “the fat one” and that after he punched him three times, Cassius cried and pleaded with him to stop and apologised over the alleged knifing, but his version of events changed during the interview.Prosecutors say it was another teen who slashed Brearley’s leg, and his attack on Cassius was a fury-filled, vengeful act of vigilante violence.CCTV recorded outside Palmer’s house in the hours before Cassius was bashed shows the accused murderers drinking alcohol before climbing into Palmer’s “monster” ute and leaving.
The court was told they drove to Gilmore’s home after her younger brothers messaged her about social media threats they received about a potential home invasion, with calls for them to meet in a nearby park for a fight.Palmer, Brearley, Forth and Gilmore later drove to a train and bus station to look for the teens Brearley believed were behind the threats and damage to his car.About the same time, Cassius and a large group of fellow students were on a bus to a field near Gilmore’s home to watch a fight being talked about on social media.CCTV on the bus showed him dressed in a green school uniform t-shirt, dark shorts and a black backpack.He’s tall and calm and stands quietly near the rear doors, with his right hand wrapped around a yellow pole to steady himself.He appears deep in thought as the students chat with each other around him.
Cameras on buildings and in the bus recorded Cassius and the group stepping off at a stop about the same time Palmer allegedly drives his ute with his co-accused past.In the minutes that follow, as the students walk down a street, Gilmore leaves Brearley, Palmer and Forth after an argument.Prosecutors say the three men then confronted Cassius’ group before he was attacked.A witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the jury he was among the teens.Then 13, he said he ran into bushland in fear of the men and that, after crossing a creek, he looked back and spotted his “close mate” Cassius get hit by a man with a description matching Brearley.The teen said Cassius, who suffered brain bleeds consistent with blunt force trauma, was bleeding from the side of his head and crying in pain.Dashcam footage taken in a nearby car park later showed him lying on the ground near an ambulance stretcher with a security guard helping him.
Cassius was laid to rest just over a month later by hundreds of mourners who celebrated his life.The trial continues with chief justice Peter Quinlan giving the jury directions on Friday before it retired.