Cassius Turvey’s final day detailed in court

Warning: This story contains the name and images of a deceased Indigenous person.

A schoolfriend of Cassius Turvey has told a court about the moments leading up to him being assaulted, detailing the alleged racial abuse that was levied at them as they walked together after school two years ago.

The girl, who was 16 years old at the time of the incident and cannot be identified for legal reasons, said she was with Cassius and a group of other friends when they were allegedly verbally abused by the four people now charged with murder over his death in October 2022.

CCTV footage of Cassius Turvey on a bus on the day of his death in October 2022.Credit: Supreme Court of WA

Cassius, 15, died in hospital 10 days after prosecutors say he was chased down, knocked to the ground and struck on the head with a metal pole in the eastern Perth suburb of Middle Swan.

Jack Steven James Brearley, 23, his then-girlfriend Aleesha Louise Gilmore, 23, and their mates Brodie Lee Palmer, 29 and Mitchell Colin Forth, 26, have been on trial for murder in the WA Supreme Court since the start of February.

The teenage girl gave evidence on Monday that she was with Cassius and a group of up to 20 others who got off a bus when a black ute pulled up alongside them with its windows rolled down.

She said the four accused allegedly hurled racial abuse at the group and accused them of smashing their windows.

The girl told the jury that someone from her group yelled back, “what the f--- are you talking about? No one smashed any windows”, before the car drove on and stopped on a footpath.

Three of the four accused – Forth, Brearley and Palmer – allegedly got out of the ute and retrieved weapons the girl described as metal poles, before they confronted the group on the street and continued to accuse them of smashing car windows.

The girl told the jury one of the bigger boys in their group was almost hit by one of the men – “the big muscly one” – when he allegedly took a “swing” at the boy’s face and chest with a pole, before the younger boy pulled a knife out of his bag.

“The boys started running to the bush and the men ran after them,” she told the court.

The girl then claimed the “two skinny ones” of the trio came back to where she was standing with a friend who was on crutches at the time.

“The one in the grey shirt walked up to [the boy on crutches] and started yelling at him about the smashed widows,” the girl told the jury.

“He said, ‘It has nothing to do with me, I don’t know anything about the smashed windows’.”

The girl claimed the man in the grey shirt started trying to hit the boy, pushed him to the floor and kicked him in the gut and his legs.

“He was going to do something with the pole, but he didn’t use it,” she said.

The girl claimed the men took off with the boy’s crutches, which they threw into the back of their ute before driving towards the bushes in the same direction her friends had run.

The girl told the court she later saw Cassius walking out of the bushes towards her and others alone and crying, holding his head and ear, which were bleeding.

Later, while being cross-examined by Brearley’s lawyer, Simon Watters, the girl claimed she could not be sure which of the men she saw running into the bush with metal poles, and admitted her evidence in court on Monday contradicted what she told police after the incident two years ago.

“As you sit there now, you’re not sure if the skinny man in the grey shirt ran into the bush, are you?” Watters asked.

“I agree,” she replied.

Prosecutors allege Jack Brearley was the person responsible for delivering the fatal blows to Cassius’s head, causing his death.

Brearley, however, has counter-claimed that it was his former friend and co-accused Palmer who carried out the fatal attack.

The trial continues.

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